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A hearing in one of the four criminal prosecutions of former President Donald Trump took an unexpected turn Friday afternoon when a witness who had been relying on attorney-client privilege to refuse to answer numerous questions suddenly gave the judge overseeing the case reason to believe such privilege may not apply to him in the way that he thought.
In question is whether Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis should be disqualified from prosecuting Trump and others on charges related to election interference.
Allegations of a long-running affair between Willis and Nathan Wade, the attorney she hired to lead Trump’s prosecution, first became public when a motion to dismiss the case was filed by defense attorney Ashleigh Merchant on Jan. 8 that argued the affair disqualified both Wade and Willis from being involved with the case.
During a Monday hearing, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee said that “disqualification can occur if evidence is produced demonstrating an actual conflict or the appearance of one,” according to The Associated Press.
Willis hired Wade to run the prosecution on Nov. 1, 2021. One of the disputed factual issues is whether Willis and Wade were already romantically involved at that point, or whether, as the couple claim, their relationship began during the current case.
The defense team subpoenaed Terrence Bradley, a former law partner of Wade’s, to testify Friday. Much of what Bradley might have said was “obscured” by the fact that Bradley, his attorney, and the prosecuting team regularly invoked attorney-client privilege to keep “most of the specifics” off the record.
According to Law & Crime, Bradley’s testimony “offered strong hints” about the facts in question, but nothing the judge could rely upon in making his final decision.
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