Well, if nothing else like the Klan itself the Team Trump lawyers don’t give up. When beaten down they lick their wounds and try again. Legal experts seem to agree it wasn’t a good thing that Fulton County Georgia DA Fani Willis and lead Special Prosecutor (for the Georgia RICO case) Nathan Wade for a time had a romantic relationship. However these same pundit say legally the defense (Team Trump) simply hasn’t proven via actual evidence that the standard to disqualify Willis (or Wade) from the case has been met. Evidence taking and final arguments have been made. However, in a last-ditch attempt to prevail Team Trump wants to introduce testimony from a new witness!
I first saw something about this yesterday but it got lost in other news. Now, after reading this article from NBC I can see why. It turns out this new witness the defense is hyping can only offer what I gather is called hearsay, third-Party “evidence.” As in someone told them something but they have no actual knowledge themselves of the matter in question. Often such testimony/evidence is excluded but there are exceptions and that’s what the defense is hoping for here. Their problem is that their new “witness” can only testify to what an already heard from (and pretty well discredited by the time his testimony was done) witness. Terrence Bradley, who was Nathan Wade’s former law partner and divorce lawyer.
I’ve written plenty about Bradley and his testimony here on Politizoom and to say there are issues with his credibility is putting it mildly. In fact, after hours of effort by the defense the most they got out of Bradley was his statement he told them he was sure the relationship between Willis and Wade began much earlier than they have admitted (on the record and under oath) to. However he also said he had no personal knowledge, just a belief/assumption. The one statement that caused him to wind up on the stand, that (he claims) Wade told him ONCE that he (Wade) and Willis were “dating” happened… well he couldn’t remember when. Not even in a two or three month period during a given year!
That friends was it. As I’ve said before we all know about office gossip and assumptions that get made about co-workers and “are they or aren’t they” and people who don’t know WTF they are talking about make assumptions. It’s often unfair and the gossip is spread by those who have some kind of beef with one or both of the people involved. Bradley as it turned out had plenty to want to get back at both Wade and Willis about. He’d been forced out of a successful law practice (and lost a good income as a result) over sexual assault of an employee, and lost a contract from the DA’s office for work unrelated to the RICO case as a result. It sure seemed like Bradley saw a chance to get some payback over Wade and Willis not covering him for his misdeeds, something the judge was sure to take into account.
It was necessary to go through all that because of this: the NEW “witness” the defense wants to have the judge hear from and consider got her information from Bradley! That’s right. What this “bombshell witness” has to “offer” is hearsay from an already discredited witness:
In a court filing Monday, attorneys for Trump co-defendant David Shafer said the potential witness, a co-chief Deputy District Attorney with the Cobb County DA’s office, had spoken with them about conversations she’d had with Terrence Bradley, Wade’s former law partner and divorce attorney.
According to the filing, Cindi Yeager informed the attorneys that Bradley had told her the relationship between Willis and Wade began before November 2021, when Wade was hired as a special prosecutor in the Trump case.
The linked article goes on to point out this new filing from Team Trump does NOT include any type of affidavit from Yeager, or say that she has any personal knowledge of any romantic relationship between Willis and Wade! WTF? To me this is a desperate attempt by Team Trump, who knows they will lose in their bid to disqualify Willis to distract the judge with the equivalent of a: Hey judge. We have someone who doesn’t actually know anything that would be evidence Willis and Wade are lying, but she at least says Wade told her his OPINION so pretty please consider it proof Wade is a stand-up guy. (Even though he can’t provide any actual evidence to back up his assumption about when the affair began) So even though the present evidence and arguments is close you should re-open it. For HEARSAY “evidence” even though it’s really nothing.
In Monday’s filing, Shafer attorneys Craig Gillen and Holly Pierson said that if the judge reopens evidence pertaining to the misconduct allegation, their client would offer testimony from Yeager about her conversations with Bradley between August 2023 and January of this year.
Yeager, Shafer said, would testify that Bradley told her that Willis and Wade “had definitively begun a romantic relationship” by the time that “Ms. Willis was running for District Attorney in 2019 through 2020,” and that Bradley “had personal knowledge of the relationship.”
Bradley testified last week he had no such knowledge.
The article goes into more detail about what Yeager supposedly will say about what Bradley told her but a couple of things jumped out at me. One I’ve already mentioned which is that she has no personal/firsthand knowledge the romantic relationship began before Wade was hired on. Second, and more importantly is that the defense had all this information while the hearing was still taking evidence. That in turn makes me wonder if the defense knew all this THEN, then why didn’t they call Yeager to the stand? I think the answer is obvious. It’s a big fat nothing-burger. They knew it then which is why we weren’t “treated” to the sight of Yeager in the witness chair last week. And it’s nothing now other than second hand gossip/innuendo. From a clearly less than objective source.
Look. Experts are in agreement on the law when it comes to the actual question of whether or not Willis and/or Wade should be disqualified. They say the defense failed to prove a) that Wade was hired only because he was a romantic partner of Willis, and b) that Willis benefited financially. That’s what the defense (lawyers for Trump’s co-defendants) had to prove and they couldn’t do it, at least according to legal experts including some who were in the courtroom during the proceedings.
What the defense CAN do is continue with what was one of their objectives all along. Personally attack Willis to destroy her credibility and thus weaken the case she has against Trump and his co-defendant. It is nothing more than a sleaze attack. There’s also another, more subtle thing going on. The defense will lose its motion to disqualify on the merits, or rather lack thereof. That much seems certain. However, if they throw enough shiite on the walls of the courtroom and Willis they can stink up the case. Perhaps they hope the judge, while shooting them down will include something in his ruling suggesting that for appearances sake Willis should recuse. Or at least Wade.
And there’s also this. Judge McAfee is a young guy with a long, bright future ahead of him. He’s also a staunch Federal Society guy who was active since back in college. Judges are people like everyone else and even if he tries to remain impartial if Team Trump can dirty up Willis (and Wade) enough it might sometimes influence McAfee on those “judgement calls” a trial judge gets called on to make. In sports terms it’s called working the referees.
One thing for sure is that even though the defense will lose, they intend to continue attacks on Willis (and Wade) because while she acquitted herself well on the stand, fought back and kicked their asses in fact in the PR war she’s limited in how much she can say to defend herself. It’s not fair, but that’s how things are. Right now, with all the other news going on I figure this story will get drowned out this week. However you can be sure come next week Team Trump will be screaming it from the rooftops so I wanted to call your attention to it now.
How many more bites of the apple do these worms want?
As many as it takes for them to push their agenda through and get everything they want.
The judge for this case has already indicated he is interested in getting rid of Attorney Willis by allowing this bull-sh*t to go on as long as it did. I would not be surprised if he allows hearsay to be put forward as evidence-there hasn’t been any evidence entered since this nonsense began. This has been an evidence-free attempt by team dingleberry to f*ck up the wheel works and this newest “evidence” is more of the same. The judge might as well just say to Attorney Willis: I don’t like you, I don’t want you to bring this case to trial, please leave. THAT is the only reason the judge has and has been given thus far.
This fool of a “judge” might have come from the Aileen Cannon school of law.
I’ve written in prior articles about that last point you raised. The judge is bright and took the bench with a bright future ahead of him. This is one helluva case to get dumped in his lap this early in his career. If he plays it right and the Federalist Society isn’t finally discredited he can and will go far. I call Cannon “Loose” Cannon because she’s gone so far off the reservation even the Federalist Society is embarrassed by her. I wonder how many of their “handlers” have quit in frustration forcing them to send someone else to try and rein her in!
In McAfee’s case he’s I believe (and apparently you too) he’s trying to shame Willis into recusing. He knows and has known pretty much from the start (remember, the lawyers had to file evidentiary motions prior to the hearing) the defense didn’t have the goods to meet a fairly high bar required to disqualify Willis (and Wade). What he COULD do was allow a shit show to make Willis and by extension the case against Trump and the others to get “tainted” by the public at-large. That he’s done.
And while I doubt he’ll re-open the case, I believe his ruling will include criticism of Willis and Wade for “poor personal judgement”, again in an attempt to force her to recuse. Why this matters is that it’s such a wide-ranging and complicated case AND the number of counties in GA with DAs experienced in that state’s RICO law & prosecutions is limited. If she steps aside the odds of the case going to trial before the end of the year are greatly diminished, even if she can hire new outside counsel as qualified as she is to step in. And remember, while Wade IS qualified play a lead role alongside her he wasn’t her top choice. Former Gov. Roy Barnes wasn’t the only one to turn down the gig.
There’s been a method to McAfee’s madness and you’ve hit on it.
Well, they are trying to get another witness like Yeager in for testimony as well.
Also, the young judge was appointed by Gov Kemp and now has to stand for election himself. I imagine he is a little more concerned about his future than Fani’s right now.
Hey I heard from someone that someone told them from a reliable source this judge spends his weekends with a rubber ball strapped in his mouth while a ‘woman’ with a handlebar mustache whips his bare ass with a leather whip.I think he should step down before someone who knows someone who was told this by someone is called to testify in an ethics case against him. Sounds factual to me.
Yup – that’s about the long and short of it. Frankly, I’ve never understood what the hell this is about. How is the relationship between Willis and Wade (who are on the same team) relevant in any way to what Trump and the other slate of reprobates are charged with in the case?
Well, if the judge DOES allow this hearsay evidence, all it does is COMPLETELY destroy Bradley’s legal career. Willis and Wade’s attorneys simply turn the “surprise” witness’s testimony on her by asking her who the court should believe? Bradley, who testified on the stand that he had NO actual knowledge of any relationship or Yeager, whose sole testimony seems to be that Bradley “told” her about this relationship (again, the relationship about which Bradley has already testified to having no actual knowledge). If the court is to believe Bradley, then Yeager’s testimony is without merit; if the court is to believe Yeager, then Bradley perjured himself on the stand. I’m not sure how the Georgia Bar looks at attorneys committing perjury in testimony but I’m pretty sure they don’t condone attorneys who allow their witnesses to commit perjury and when said witness *IS* an attorney, I imagine that’s going to merit a visit before Georgia’s Bar Association as to whether he should be able to keep his license to practice law–anywhere. And that goes for BOTH Bradley and Yeager (if Yeager’s a “co-chief deputy District Attorney,” that means she’s also got to be a lawyer).
Their testimony is looking like a M C Escher drawing…the kind we used to stare at after smoking weed.
They’ve found their witness