COMING UP: Terrence Bradley--the former divorce attorney of special prosecutor Nathan Wade--is expected to take the stand and resume his testimony in Fulton County. #FaniWillis#Georgia#legal
Judge McAfee kicks off w/ a summary of why we're here:
After meeting w/ Bradley in private, I found that neither Wade nor Bradley carried their burden of establishing that attorney-client privilege applied wrt whether there was a relationship btween Willis and Wade.
16/ Bradley: I was speculating...no one told me that. I never witnessed anything...it was speculation. I can't tell you anything specific as to why I speculated about that. It was many years ago.
Wade's former partner, Terrence Bradley, says he can't recall if Wade and Willis were in a relationship at the time they hired him at the DA's office in 2021. He says he can't recall.
The lawyer for Mike Roman, Ashleigh Merchant, is struggling to establish much of anything.
Merchant: What did Nathan Wade tell you about the relationship?
Bradley: I recall him stating that at some point they were dating. I can't tell you what date that was. We were in our offices. There was no one else present. That's all I can tell you at this time.
21/ Bradley: I didn't reach out to you and say send me a copy of your motion. But I looked at it and I noticed that you had left out my part of the money the partnership received through my part of the firm. So I said that should be put back in for accuracy.
@GottaLaff OOF. She keeps falling on her own knife here. He is NOT helping her at all.
This is the exact same way they went after Willis and Wade - TELL ME WHAT I AM ALLEGING IS TRUE! And all they're getting is - "you're out on your own limb and sawing it off, sister"
25/ Merchant: What did Wade tell you about he and Willis meeting at her office in Evans?
Bradley: I can't recall what the conversation was...I do recall knowing that he would go down to the office but can't tell you when or what happened there.
28/ Merchant: Do you remember telling me that it didn't surprise you that Willis and Wade took many trips together because they also took trips together to Florida, Texas, etc.?
Q. There were no other conversations or you don't remember any other conversations?
A. Well since all I can do is give you my recollection. My recollection is that there were no other conversations. I can't be more definitive than that because I'm working from my own brain's memory. 🤷
43/ Sadow: You knew Ashleigh Merchant represented a defendant in this case and so you knew when she was asking you these questions that she was trying to establish when they met?
46/ Sadow proffers text in which Merchant asked Bradley if the following statement was accurate: "On information and belief, Willis and Wade met at a magistrate court conference and began a relationship shortly thereafter..."
Sadow now trying to get Bradley to admit on the stand that he knowingly misled Ashleigh Merchant with speculation and gossip when she was asking questions in furtherance of mounting a defense.
Seriously, Merchant’s lawyer is blaming Bradley for not proofreading her motion and telling her there was a factual inaccuracy. This is the kind of thing you explicitly clarify in writing. You don’t leave it open to interpretation.
It's a shame that Bradley isn't just saying it clearly: "I can see how someone could read my response as a statement that everything in that draft is accurate. However, that was not my intent. My statement was merely meant to comment that the fact she added at my request was accurate."
Stockton: You indicated that the contents of Merchant's DQ motion were accurate?
Bradley: She asked in email if the motion was accurate, but I responded in a text chain about a specific fact in the motion, not the motion as a whole.
I also think it's telling (sorry if I missed it) that none of these defense attorneys have asked him straight-out, "Did the defense attorney ask you to write a declaration as to your personal knowledge in support of her motion." The answer would be sure to be telling.
@GottaLaff What a fucking waste of time this entire hearing is. FOUR lawyers all asking the same questions, all getting the same answers. None of them with a "gotcha" but it's clear that's the game they are playing.
In what has mostly been a painful and newsless hearing, it's quite remarkable to hear Wade's former law partner say he 'can't recall' whether he lied to defense attorneys about Wilils and Wade's relationship.
Meantime, I'm trying to find Bowers' thread. It broke so I'm struggling to figure out where she left off.
"Judge [#McAfee] has done a lot of cutting off/asked and answered rulings."
McAfee will eventually find for the prosecution. In the mean time, the defense, by wasting hours and hours, is fulfilling #Trump 's strategy--to delay, delay, delay.
@GottaLaff if one lawyer reaches out to an unrelated attorney who may have a past attorney/client relationship with a potential target of a motion and ask them to proofread it, without any sort of written agreement, wth are they doing relying on that for a factual basis of the motion?
Christopher Kachouroff is up. He's already been cut off by the judge, but is allowed to proceed. No I dont' know who he is, but we'll find out when Bowers returns.
Now lawyers are arguing about the chain of text messages. Apparently Squeaky didn't include all of them. She skipped a month or 2.
The various lawyers are blaming each other for whose failure all this was: Should defense include them all, should prosecution have asked for them? It's all so annoying right now.
63/ Apparently, Squeaky demanded her phone back before all the texts could be included. Squeaky said she'd now print a readout of all of the texts. Judge said that works.
Squeaky is still defending herself for omitting texts. Judge shut her down: "We're done."
Judge is talking about hearing arguments on Friday, will make a ruling at some point.
64/ So: Friday they do arguments, talk disqualification and forensic misconduct (Don't ask me, no idea what that's about), and judge's court has 2 weeks of a homicide trial after Friday.
End.
What total idiocy all this is. Smart Black woman who can nail rapist thug for election interference is getting smeared, harassed, could get disqualified for ... nothing. Sigh.
Did he have much of a choice?
There is a statutory basis for the motion with some not completely ridiculous evidence to prevent a summary denial.
If he doesn't give the various attorneys sufficient rope to hang themselves, he opens himself up to a successful appeal which would be worse.
We can sit here and armchair-judge all day that this is a waste of time (which sure looks obvious), but if you don't let the process finish appropriately, you're just turning this into a whack-a-mole issue that will come back up. Let it play out so that even an idiot can see there's nothing there as long as they're not looking through partisan glasses.
But we don't...
it's all become too stupidly circus tawdry and pathetic and even past national inquirer tabloid type crap... I'm all for finding justice and accountability, but this is far past that.. this was supposed to be about if wade and willis.. had an improper relationship (they are consenting adults? Right?) and benefitted financially from the arrangement. we are far far past that. this is far off in the weeds.
No, we don't, but based on the law and evidence an educated guess says the burden required to grant the motion was not met and he will rule accordingly.
What many are missing (but not the Lawfare folks who've been on top of it) is that there was significant liability lurking out there that is being dealt with before it could really screw the pooch.
Defense lawyers always look for every opportunity to get their client off. It's their job!
@GottaLaff If....and a big if...she had taken any gifts then yeah I will give it to these guys but this just looks like a hatchet job. Bad lawyers trying to pretend they are any good by going for a gotcha moment.
@GottaLaff there's always that chance, I suppose. The frustrating thing is that the judge DOES have to give the complainants their day in court. That doesn't mean they proved ANYTHING.
We can only hope that the judge sees it as a fishing expedition and ignores the 'stank' that the complainants have tried to raise - i.e. surrender to the distraction instead of the letter of the law.
Trump IS winning the delay game here, regardless and the "try me in the court of public opinion" fight.
@GottaLaff It feels as though McAfee gave them a ridiculous amount of leeway. I hope he’s just bending over backwards to seem fair, because this has been a horrid circus.
@GottaLaff@JamesGleick Thx for the play-by-plays, BTW! Def appreciate them. It's just this BS is such silly high school gossip that my mind is basically refusing to process it.
But it also has the stink of so many other things these days ... feeling like the fix is in, too much money and too much power is too far invested in oligopoly.
@GottaLaff I suspect Squeaky may have broken her own A-C privilege in discussions she omitted in the text messages, which would open the door for the DA to dig up more if they so desire.
@GottaLaff If she discusses items/information that are subject to A-C privilege of another client with a non-client, then she may have exposed her actual client and the underlying information.
@GottaLaff It might be the reason she omitted intervening texts with Bradley re "Now lawyers are arguing about the chain of text messages. Apparently Squeaky didn't include all of them. She skipped a month or 2."
@GottaLaff This whole things seems like an extraordinary hearing to be having with no real evidence other than what they hoped would be a bombshell from a second hand witness who didn’t want to be there. The original morion promised so much more.
@MiriShuli@GottaLaff it's not a big win to get on the record that YOUR witness lies. That's what's KILLING me here. He's not Wade or Willis' witness - he is the complainants witness and apparently ONLY witness and he is not only NOT helping them ... he's painting them as very incompetent to have relied on him to make the case for their complaint.
@DoctorDNS@GottaLaff honestly, if I had to sit in a court trying to explain inconsistencies with lawyers who insist on getting “gotcha” soundbytes from speculation alone, I wouldn’t be a nice guy either.
@GottaLaff the assumption that he would have done the job of the petitioner's lawyers should have gotten a reprimand. My question as the judge would have been "is he your witness or part of your legal team?". He's apparently neither, btw.
@GottaLaff exactly - and he's a LAWYER! You would have PAID him to do that. As a witness, he would do exactly what he's describing - vouching for the section he thinks he provided, not the entire motion. He can't assume he's the only witness. smh
@GottaLaff@Wileymiller seems inconceivable to the defense attorneys thought they’d rely on his comments, and none of those jokers asked him for an affidavit attesting to certain facts beforehand.
@GottaLaff
Steve #Sadow is lead counsel for Donald #Trump. Of course he yells louder than any of the other attorneys. #TFG is probably watching. He wants to make sure he's getting the most for his contributors' money.
@GottaLaff it's funny when the Trump lawyers get the treatment they coach the Trump family to use when questioned.
"I don't recall." is Ivanka's ringtone.
@GottaLaff it seems like a hail mary and the judge is giving her all KINDS of leeway. It's easy to see how both Wade and Willis lost their patience with her. i just don't get how this is allowed to go on, but as Teri Kanefield often advises - it's all part of the game.
@GottaLaff at what point does the judge call out this badgering? i mean - he has answered this question four or five times now. This is not the witness Merchant thought he was and the whole issue of a foundation ... for credibility ... is completely missing, and she can't get him to create one for her.
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