Fani Willis Faces New Pressure as Judge Orders Nathan Wade’s Ex-Lawyer to Testify About Relationship

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis speaks during a news conference at the Fulton County Government building in Atlanta, Ga., on Aug. 14, 2023. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis faces renewed pressure as the judge considering whether she should be disqualified from the case against former President Donald Trump has ordered special prosecutor Nathan Wade’s former lawyer to retake the stand as a witness to answer more questions about an alleged “improper” relationship between Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade.

Ashleigh Merchant, a defense attorney who is seeking to disqualify Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade from the case on the premise that the pair were in a personal relationship that they benefited from at taxpayers’ expense, told 11Alive that Judge Scott McAfee on Monday ordered the witness, Terrence Bradley, back to the stand.

Mr. Bradley is Mr. Wade’s former law partner and once served as his divorce attorney. Ms. Merchant, who represents Trump co-defendant Michael Roman in the Fulton County election interference case, said in an earlier court filing that Mr. Bradley’s testimony could prove that the relationship between Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade began earlier than the pair have claimed.

Defense attorneys, including Ms. Merchant, have alleged that Ms. Willis began her romantic relationship with Mr. Wade in 2019, before she hired him for the high-profile Trump prosecutor, so they could both benefit financially from taxpayer funds.

The defense attorneys have argued that hiring what would have been her boyfriend at the time amounted to a conflict of interest and so she should be disqualified from the case.

Both Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade have denied any financial benefit from their relationship, while insisting their relationship started in 2022, after Ms. Willis had already hired Mr. Wade for the job.

Bradley Testimony in Focus

Mr. Bradley testified at a Feb. 15–16 hearing, with defense lawyers asking him to answer questions about the timing of the Willis–Wade relationship but Mr. Bradley for the most part refused, claiming any information he had was protected by attorney-client privilege from his time as Mr. Wade’s divorce lawyer.

During the Feb. 16 hearing, Judge McAfee questioned whether some of the information over which Mr. Bradley was claiming attorney-client privilege was being legitimately asserted. So the judge set a closed-door meeting for Feb. 26 with Mr. Bradley and his attorney, to determine what evidence in Mr. Bradley’s possession is protected by privilege and what isn’t.

Following that meeting, the judge notified attorneys involved in the case by email that some communications between Mr. Wade and Mr. Bradley are not privileged, per ABC News, anonymously citing “sources familiar with the matter.”

One of the attorneys, Ms. Merchant, told 11Alive that the judge has ordered Mr. Bradley back to the stand, possibly as early as Tuesday.

Ms. Merchant previously asserted that she believes Mr. Bradley had direct knowledge that Ms. Willis’s and Mr. Wade’s relationship began earlier than the pair claim. In particular, the defense attorney claimed in a court filing that Mr. Bradley has “personal knowledge” that the pair “regularly stayed together” at Ms. Willis’s home until her father moved in in 2020, and at another residence Ms. Willis once shared with a former employee of the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office.

While Mr. Wade and Ms. Willis have admitted to having been in a romantic relationship, they both insist it started after Ms. Willis hired Mr. Wade as special prosecutor in the Trump case.

The pair have also denied any financial benefit from their relationship, which is a key point in the proceedings.

Final Hearing Date Set

Judge McAfee has said that Ms. Willis could be disqualified from the case if there is enough evidence to show “an actual conflict or the appearance of one.”

Judge Scott McAfee speaks during a hearing in the 2020 Georgia election interference case at the Fulton County Courthouse in Atlanta, on Dec. 1, 2023. John David Mercer/Pool via Getty Images

He said that the hearings were intended to establish “whether a relationship existed, whether that relationship was romantic or nonromantic in nature, when it formed and whether it continues.”

The judge also said that such questions are only relevant “in combination with the question of the existence and extent of any personal benefit conveyed as a result of the relationship.”

Law professor Anthony Michael Kreis took to X to muse about Mr. Bradley’s forthcoming testimony.

“Terrance Bradley has information from things he saw that backdate the Willis-Wade relationship—could be generic impressions or damning,” he wrote.

“Tomorrow is going to be dramatic. We may learn a lot of new facts. It may a total dud. Somebody definitely hasn’t been treating this with the utmost candor. But that’s all we can probably say,” he added.

Judge McAfee has set a March 1 hearing date for final arguments on whether Ms. Willis should be disqualified from the election interference case against President Trump.

The hearing, the result of which could see Ms. Willis replaced with a different prosecutor, is set for 1 p.m., and is expected to be livestreamed, as with most Fulton County proceedings.

President Trump has denied any wrongdoing in the case, arguing that it’s part of a ploy to hamstring his 2024 comeback bid.