Judge McAfee has concluded that the attorney for Nathan Wade must retake the stand at the Fani Willis hearings and that he must answer questions that are not protected by the attorney-client privilege.
“A witness in the ongoing Fulton County district attorney disqualification controversy met behind closed doors with the judge overseeing the case Monday,” two lawyers involved with the case confirmed to 11Alive.
“The witness, Terrence Bradley, is a former law partner and one-time divorce attorney for special prosecutor Nathan Wade,” the report continued.
“Defense attorneys have asked Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee to disqualify both Wade and District Attorney Fani Willis, alleging they financially benefitted from a romantic relationship they shared during their ongoing prosecution of former president Donald Trump and co-defendants accused of interfering with the 2020 election in Georgia,” 11Alive added.
The development was also noted by legal analyst Phil Holloway on X.
BREAKING ??
Judge rules no attorney-client privilege for #FaniWillis “special prosecutor” Nathan Wade’s former lawyer
This means he will have to testify about potentially incriminating texts and other information that could prove Willis affair started earlier than she said
— Phil Holloway ✈️ (@PhilHollowayEsq) February 26, 2024
“Judge rules no attorney-client privilege for #FaniWillis ‘special prosecutor’ Nathan Wade’s former lawyer,” Holloway remarked.
“This means he will have to testify about potentially incriminating texts and other information that could prove Willis affair started earlier than she said,” he added.
During a tense hearing two weeks ago, defense lawyers spent hours trying to persuade Bradley to answer questions about when Willis and Wade’s romantic relationship started. Bradley, however, refused to answer, arguing that any information he may have obtained during his time defending Wade in his divorce proceedings was protected by attorney-client privilege.
Judge McAfee appeared to accept Bradley’s reasoning until he responded late in the day at a hearing earlier this month, reopening the matter.
“Mr. Bradley previously testified that the reason he left the firm was totally and completely covered by privilege,” Judge McAfee said on Feb. 16. “When asked by the state, he went into a factual scenario that, to my mind, I don’t see how it relates to privilege at all. And so now I’m left wondering if Mr. Bradley has been properly interpreting privilege this entire time.”
McAfee stated that the only way to address the issue was to arrange a secret, closed-door conference — known as a “in camera” session — with Bradley and his counsel to determine which material Bradley possesses is protected by privilege and which is not. That meeting happened on Monday afternoon.
Former Dekalb County District Attorney Robert James stated that the problem presents Judge McAfee with a difficult challenge, requiring him to balance two opposing interests: the exposure of relevant evidence and the safeguarding of a highly cherished principle of legal representation.
“Privilege is sacrosanct. It is sacred,” James said. “If you can’t have privileged or secret communications or protected communications with your client, then why would they disclose everything? And if they don’t disclose everything, you can’t give them good legal advice.”
Terrence Bradley, Wade’s former legal partner who previously represented him in his Cobb County divorce, may have provided evidence to support co-defendants’ claims that Wade and Willis had a romantic involvement earlier than they claimed in court documents.
It thus has the potential to blow the case wide open and lead to the disqualification of both Nathan Wade and Fani Willis from the Trump RICO case in Georgia.
