And a
MAJOR fuck up by Fani Willis' Team. Completely unforced.
First, a quick character list so this all makes sense:
Witness | Relationship |
Fani Willis | Fulton County DA who's authority is being used to prosecute Trump. The hearing is about Disqualifying her. |
Nate Wade | A special prosecutor hired to do the actual prosecution of Donald Trump. He was in a relationship with Fani Willis. |
Terrence Bradley | Friend and lawyer for Nate Wade |
Basically, right now the defense (that's Trump's side) is trying to show that Fani Willis' and Nathan Wade's romantic relationship existed for a while, ideally prior to 2022. This matters because Nathan Wade lied on one of his divorce affidavits about if he was in a romantic relationship.
Now they want to ask a friend of Wade's, Terrence Bradley, about if Wade discussed his relationship with Fani Willis. But Terrence Bradley was
also Wade's lawyer in Wade's divorce case. And so during all of Terrence Bradley's testimony, he claimed Attorney-Client privilege regarding any romantic relationship between Wade and Willis.
But crucially, Attorney Client privilege only attaches on stuff done as an attorney, not as a friend, etc. So if Wade told Bradley when they were out to drink about what he did with Willis, that could pierce the privilege.
Now at one point Bradley left Wade's law firm because of misconduct, but claimed the misconduct would hit Attorney-Client privilege. This got brought up by the defense (remember, Trump's side is still the defense side, as this is all part of Trump's trial).
Then, for some reason, the State (Willis' side) on cross examination, asks about the misconduct, and asks if that misconduct happened because of an alleged sexual assualt. Bradley says yes. And they discuss this for a time. This was the major fuck up. Because that has nothing to do with attorney client privilege, despite his previous claim! Suddenly all of Bradley's claims of Attorney Client Privilege come into question because if he did it wrong this time, who knows if he got it wrong/lied other times? More, suddenly Bradley becomes hostile to Wade, because wtf did you expose that on national TV?
And now there's going to be specialized witness testimony, which happens
in camera (which means in private, so we can't watch it). The whole point of this is to preserve attorney client privilege. But that
in camera interview can become admissible testimony, depending on what is found out. And this admission opens the door for a lot more probing.
Basically, there's a massive unforced error by the State. This could damn them, but I don't know yet.