Witness meets with judge behind closed doors | It’s a witness in the Fulton County DA disqualification proceedings met with a judge behind closed doors today, and it was confirmed by Eleven Alive by two attorneys involved with the case.
The meeting comes as attorneys for former President Donald Trump and his co-defendants seek to remove both district Attorney Fannie Willis and Special Prosecutor Nathan Wade from the case, alleging they inappropriately benefited financially from a romantic relationship. A Love and Alive, Zack Merchant has been tracking the controversy ever since it began. He’s joining us now to explain today’s newest developments. Zack?
Well, the witness at the center of today’s proceeding is Terrence Bradley, a former law partner and one-time divorce attorney for Nathan Wade. And today, Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee met with Bradley to determine whether attorney-client privilege bars him from answering questions from defense lawyers.
It’s an issue that almost never got to this point. At a hearing on February 16th, defense attorney spent hours trying to get Bradley to share what he knows about when Willis and Wade’s relationship began. He said he couldn’t answer. Arguing any information he may have is protected by attorney-client privilege from his time representing Wade in his divorce. Fulton County Judge, Scott McAfee, seemed ready to accept that argument until Bradley gave an answer late in the day that appeared to reopen the issue. Now I’m left wondering if Mr. Bradley has been properly interpreting privilege this entire time. Judge McAfee called Bradley to a closed-door meeting to try to solve that problem and decide what information is privileged and what is not. Former DeKalb County district attorney, Robert James, says the judge will likely have asked Bradley direct questions about what he knows and how he knows it.
They were trying to parse and say, Well, okay, well, what came up in legal communications versus this person being your friend and your law partner? Was there a conversation around the office? Was there social communication? If you you can extract that from or extricate that from the legal communication, then that’s going to be admissible because they won’t be privileged.
Witness meets with judge behind closed doors | Fani Willis, Nathan Wade hearing
If Judge McAfee determines Bradley asserted privilege improperly, he may have to return to the witness stand and face more questions under oath.
If he does say that the relationship started before the time that DA Willis and Nathan Wade have said, then it’s going to be a bombshell.
But that is a big if, James, today today cautioned that right now it’s impossible to know for sure what information Bradley possesses or if it will have any impact on the actual underlying legal question of whether the prosecutors should be removed from the case. We won’t start to have concrete answers until at the very earliest, Judge McAfee decides whether Bradley will have to get back on the witness stand. James said that ruling will likely come sometime this week, ahead of oral arguments scheduled for Friday.
