GA RICO Hearing: Terrence Bradley Has A Credibility Problem

I’ve watched most of the Fulton County Georgia hearing on the motion to disqualify Fani Willis and Nathan Wade. Both the initial two days and again yesterday. A couple of weeks ago the first witness called was Nathan Wade’s former law partner and divorce attorney Terrence Bradley.  Things quickly went south over issues of attorney/client privilege and he was excused so it could be sorted out. Yesterday, after what’s called an in-camera interview with the judge a limited exception was carved out and so defense witness Bradley took the stand yesterday and as was the case the first time he looked like a man who wanted to be ANYWHERE but where he was. I could understand why, but how little did I know.

This morning I’ve read an article by CNN that provides a more complete picture of how Bradley came to be a defense (as in Trump’s defense team) witness. More importantly it, I believe shows just why Bradley was such a reluctant witness. Ashliegh Merchant, who is the lead attorney for the motion to disqualify is also the lawyer for one of Trump’s co-defendants and involved with the ex-wife of Nathan Wade’s divorce. It turns out her exchanges with Bradley are far more extensive than we thought:

The 413 texts between Terrence Bradley and Ashleigh Merchant, an attorney for one of Trump’s co-defendants, reveal months of communications between the two, shedding new light on the extent to which Bradley assisted Merchant’s pursuit of evidence to back up claims Willis and her top prosecutor, Nathan Wade, engaged in an improper romantic relationship.

Okay. I’d been under the assumption (I’ll bet most others were too) that the interactions between Bradley and Merchant were relatively few. Clearly that’s not the case. They communicated back and forth for months and not just by texts, as yesterday’s court session made clear. There were also at least some phone calls, and Merchant sending a draft copy of the motion to disqualify (Willis and Wade) to Bradley for review. As I wrote in an article here on Politizoom a couple of days ago a dispute arose over Bradley’s “approval” of the draft motion. Bradley testified that after reviewing it he sent a correction regarding financial information, which Merchant accepted. She then sent it back and Bradley said it looked good.

Yesterday, despite attacks Bradley insisted his “looks good” referred ONLY to the financial correction (something about roughly $70k in fees to the law firm) but NOT the overall substance of the motion. Naturally, Merchant and others on Team Trump feel Bradley had “endorsed” (my term) everything included in the motion to disqualify. That will be an issue the judge has to weigh before making a ruling. As the title indicates I think Bradley has a credibility problem but on this point he was quite forceful. People can and will disagree but it’s (to me at least) entirely plausible that Bradley’s “looks good” was as he stated under oath limited to a reference to that money. That, to characterize his testimony he wanted to ensure anything regarding fees/money was accurate.

Moving on to the heart of things I said a couple of days ago the entire couple of hours was a Trumpian sh*t show and I stand by that. Even more so given what’s in the linked CNN article. Given how chummy Bradley became with Merchant I can see why she wanted to call him to the stand to rebut Willis’ and Wade’s claim about when their romantic relationship started because in private at least Bradley painted a quite different picture. Yet for all that, it seems despite all the communication Bradley never gave a specific (as within a month or two) time when the “romantic relationship” began, or provide any personal knowledge of things he witnessed that would indicate “romance!”

I fear what’s gotten lost is that despite all those texts, Merchant couldn’t produce one (apparently) other than one from Bradley saying he thought things began when Willis was a Fulton County judge. Merchant is by all accounts a very good lawyer. I’m sure during any conversations she had with Bradley she took notes. Yet apparently she couldn’t produce even any notes (which do count as evidence in court most of the time) with which to confront Bradley. You know, a real live “Perry Mason moment” along the  lines of: Here are my notes of our conversation(s) on such and such a date where you specifically said “this.” Were you lying then or are you lying now?

I for one have no doubt that if Merchant had something explosive in her notes she’d have produced them to the court. I hope pundits will pick up on that like I did yesterday and talk about it. Still, this doesn’t get to what really is the likely reason for Bradley being such a reluctant witness which is this – he was promised his name would never come up! Yep, he was quite eager and even happy to say all manner of things when he thought he’d remain safely anonymous. Even make suggestions to help Merchant in her quest. It seems his trust in her keeping her word was sorely misplaced.  From the linked CNN article:

Over months of texts, Bradley on a number of occasions disparaged Wade and Willis, calling them “arrogant as f” in one January text to Merchant.

Bradley also indicated that he didn’t want to be directly connected to the allegations and expressed a desire not to be named as the initial source of the information.

“I protected you completely,” Merchant told Bradley about the draft of her motion to disqualify. “Not that you need protection,” Merchant texted. “But I kept you out of it.”

“I really appreciate you keeping me out of,” Bradley replied.

Well now, that certainly puts a different spin on things. But there’s more. The article notes the contrast between Bradley’s Tuesday testimony compared to the tone of his text messages (and one presumes other communications) with Merchant, including his calling Merchant his “friend” and also bashing Willis and Wade. Remember that Wade was his former law partner. The operative word that isn’t getting the attention it deserves is “former” as in why Bradley and Wade’s partnership dissolved:

Bradley left their law firm in 2022 after allegations surfaced that Bradley sexually assaulted an employee at the firm. Bradley denied those allegations while testifying at an earlier hearing over Willis’s potential disqualification.

That law firm wasn’t rolling in dough but was reasonably successful and testimony and documentation establishes that partners split all income equally. So getting forced out was a significant financial hit for Bradley and given the circumstances no doubt impacted his ability to easily or quickly replace a nice stream of income. Then, to add insult to injury Wade fired Bradley as his divorce attorney shortly after Bradley was forced out of the law firm.

Am I the only one who looks at all this and thinks maybe (ok, to me it seems obvious) that Bradley had an ax to grind? Keep in mind that Bradley had for a time been Wade’s divorce attorney so Merchant knew from the start there were things that would be protected by attorney-client privilege BUT in court attorneys can (and do) pose questions they know will be objected to knowing that just having accusations/innuendo out there register. Judges can (and do) admonish jurors (and internally themselves) NOT to take it into consideration but human beings are human beings. People can and do try to ignore this kind of thing but aren’t always successful.

What matters is that Merchant has managed to get all this out into the public realm and whatever promises she made to Bradley she strung him along knowing damn well that given any chance she’d do exactly what she’s done. Create a scandal in the hopes of tarnishing Willis’ and Wade’s professional reputations and more importantly create a cloud of doubt over the entire Trump RICO prosecution. She USED Bradley and intended to all along and he was too gullible to realize it. And that he’d wind up there where all the world could see he didn’t want to be.  Again I have to point out just how eager Bradley was to “get” Willis and particularly Wade:

Despite his desire to remain behind the scenes, Bradley provided Merchant with the names of several people he believed to have first-hand knowledge of when Willis and Wade’s romantic relationship began.

“Subpoena them all,” Bradley says in a text to Merchant on January 7, 2024, referring to a list of names that included other prosecutors in the DA’s office, members of Willis’ security detail and others close to her.

At one point Bradley and Merchant even discussed subpoenaing Willis’s children to confirm the existence of a romantic relationship between Willis and Wade.

For all that, the CNN article notes that Merchant was unable to secure any testimony/evidence to support her claim of the romantic relationship between Willis and Wade starting earlies than they say it did.  Which meant any promises she’d made to Bradley about confidentiality were worthless and that’s how he wound up being called. In retrospect, given he was supposed to be “leadoff” when the hearing convened a couple of weeks ago it now seems Merchant was counting on him. From the beginning despite what she’d told him when they were exchanging all those texts. He was supposed to be the gun that fired her “kill shot” and he turned out to be a blank load instead of a live bullet.

Here’s how the now much fuller picture looks to me. I’m of the opinion that when Merchant reached out Bradley was in “a mood”, and wanting some “payback” for his diminished financial and career status. So he shot off his mouth believing Merchant’s bullshit about keeping his name out of it. If he looked miserable, and suffering on the stand he’s only got himself to blame. He had to admit he had NOTHING to back up the claims he’d made to Merchant when he thought no one would ever know he’d been helping her “get” Willis and Wade. Did he make assumptions? Clearly so. Just like people make assumptions about others and what they believe “have” to be being romantically involved.

I’ve had it happen to me with women I’ve known and worked with. I’ll bet most of you have too. People can associate outside the office and even be friends but that does NOT a romantic relationship make. However that doesn’t prevent others who know one or both of them, especially if they have some reason to be upset with one or both of them or think they’d been denied their due at work from “speculating.” Even spreading rumors. Again, I’ll bet every person who’s reading this has witnesses this very phenomena.  People form opinions and even gossip about them. Or choose to spread malicious rumors for whatever reason.

Like the woman who was once friends with Willis who didn’t do her job at the DA’s office and was “fired” as in allowed to resign instead of being officially terminated. To me Bradley is no different. He was pissed about being forced out of a if not lucrative then reasonably successful law practice. And the resulting loss of income. Worse he then lost even the income of representing Wade as his divorce attorney. So when given the chance he chose to shoot off his mouth and get payback.

During some intense questioning as to why he would have said what he did to Merchant to me, even Tuesday his refusal to come up with an explanation was obvious. The truth of why he “speculated” was he didn’t want to say the actual truth which was basically: Look. Wade did me wrong dumping me like he did. He and Fani Willis knew each other because he gave her advice on her campaign. They were both “available” so I assumed, even though I never had any evidence of it to think they at least “got it on” sometimes. And because SHE (points to Merchant) promised to keep my name out of it I shot off my big fat mouth and talks a bunch of sh*t I knew I couldn’t back up.  That’s what I thought of Bradley back on Tuesday, and now after reading the CNN article I’m convinced I was right to think it.

From my perspective THAT seems to put a HUGE dent in Bradley’s credibility. He’s brought personal and professional humiliation on himself and perhaps even risked his law license in a fit of pique.  It will be interesting to see how the prosecution treats this during closing arguments tomorrow. The fact is, both of the defense (again – Trump’s lawyers) “star” witnesses have personal axes to grind harms their credibility.

That’s what all this boils down to. Who was more credible and able to back up their position while on the witness stand.  That’s what judge McAfee will have to weigh. I don’t approve (still) for one minute the way the judge let things go the way they did and for as long as they did Tuesday. Perhaps he was giving the defense rope with which to hang themselves. Because in the end, I suspect Bradley’s time on the stand went just how he thought it would.

Both in the sense that Bradley would show himself not to be a credible witness and the defense failing to produce evidence to meet the bar for disqualifying Willis, or even Wade for that matter. And probably not even any grounds for perjury charges which is something some pundits have bandied about.  The Georgia State Bar might have some issues they want to talk with Bradley about but that’s a different matter. However, the sad and infuriating fact is that the Georgia case has devolved into what I again say is the kind of monkeys flinging turds at the audience in the Big Top circus Trump wants, and even needs it to be.