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A judge has ordered Nathan Wade’s former law partner and divorce attorney to return to the witness stand on Monday to testify regarding the timeline of his client’s alleged intimate relationship with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
It is claimed that when Terrence Bradley’s client was appointed by the district attorney to serve as the special prosecutor in former President Donald Trump’s Georgia election interference case, he had firsthand knowledge that Willis and Wade were already dating.
Bradley invoked Wade’s attorney-client privilege when he declined to respond to inquiries regarding the DA and special prosecutor’s relationship during a hearing on February 15.
Judge Scott McAfee ruled that the divorce lawyer and his counsel “did not meet their burden of establishing that the communication(s) are covered by attorney-client privilege and therefore the hearing can resume as to Mr. Bradley’s examination,” according to CNN.
“Trump and several of his co-defendants are seeking Willis’ disqualification from the case and to have all charges against them dismissed over the alleged relationship, arguing that the DA benefited financially from the alleged romance and that it compromised the integrity of the case,” the New York Post reported.
“Lawyers for Trump recently revealed that dozens of pings from Wade’s cellphone indicate that the special prosecutor made overnight trips to Willis’ rented condo and communicated with the DA earlier than they have both have previously testified that their relationship began. McAfee will decide on whether to allow the cellphone data as evidence at a Friday hearing, according to Fox News,” the outlet added.
Wade reportedly paid Willis’ condo a minimum of 35 visits prior to Wade’s hiring by Trump’s legal team, according to court documents.
Prior to his hiring in November 2021, Wade visited the property no more than ten times, according to his testimony last week.
According to Willis and Wade, they started dating at the beginning of 2022.
Attorney and legal analyst Jonathan Turley believes a Georgia court might send Fani Willis for prosecution in light of newly discovered evidence.
Due to a personal relationship that ended in the summer of 2023, Willis and Nathan Wade—the prosecutor she hired in 2021 to head the racketeering case against former President Donald Trump—have come under scrutiny.
There are allegations against Trump and eighteen other defendants that they plotted to thwart Georgia’s election victory for Joe Biden in 2020.
The former president, who is the front-runner for the GOP nomination in the 2024 election, has entered a not-guilty plea to all charges and asserts that the case is politically motivated.
Early in January, Michael Roman, a former Trump campaign staffer and co-defendant in the case, filed claims of a personal relationship between Willis and Wade to disqualify Willis and her team and have his charges dropped. In this case, Roman has entered a not-guilty plea.
To decide whether to disqualify Willis and her office from the case, Chief Judge Scott McAfee held a series of hearings last week.
While on the witness stand, Willis was asked if Wade ever visited her home.
Willis then erupted, saying, “So let’s be clear, ’cause you lied in this” while holding up court documents. “It is a lie! It is a lie!”
Turley, a professor at George Washington University Law School who testified during Bill Clinton’s impeachment inquiry in 1998 and at an impeachment hearing for Trump in 2019, wrote on X, formerly Twitter, “We are still awaiting a response from Willis so this is only one side. However, it could put Willis’s combative testimony into sharp relief as she declared, ‘It’s a lie. It’s a lie’ on the stand.”
In a Friday supplemental brief, Trump’s attorneys requested that McAfee evaluate new evidence, which included an affidavit from a private investigator who examined Wade’s cellphone location data. Turley was making reference to this evidence.
Wade twice arrived at Willis’ house late at night in 2021 and departed early in the morning, once in September and once in November, according to the investigator’s data.
Court could refer Fani Willis for prosecution after new evidence: Attorney https://t.co/GQ0ttuCe9z pic.twitter.com/O7sPGfBC6I
— Newsweek (@Newsweek) February 24, 2024
“If the court believes that Willis and Wade lied on the stand, he could refer the matter for possible prosecution…by some other office. He could also consider a referral to the bar. Once again, the insistence on Willis and Wade that they remain in the case is troubling,” Turley wrote in a follow-up X post.
In another post, he added, “There is clearly a growing appearance of impropriety and possible conflicts of interest. It is clear that their continuation in the matter is undermining not just the integrity of the case but that of their office. While many praised Willis for her combative testimony, it only magnified the concerns for many about the underlying personal motivations and interests in the hiring of Nathan Wade.”
Turley told Newsweek via email on Saturday that Willis and Wade should “step aside” in Trump’s Georgia case, adding that their “problems are escalating.”
