Trump co-defendant seeks to enter new testimony in effort to disqualify DA Fani Willis

ATLANTA — An attorney for one of former President Donald Trump’s co-defendants in Georgia wants the judge presiding over a misconduct motion against the Fulton County district attorney to hear testimony from a new witness about when DA Fani Willis began her romantic relationship with the special prosecutor in the election interference case.

In a court filing Monday, attorneys for Trump co-defendant David Shafer said the potential witness, a co-chief Deputy District Attorney with the Cobb County DA’s office, had spoken with them about conversations she’d had with Terrence Bradley, Wade’s former law partner and divorce attorney.

According to the filing, Cindi Yeager informed the attorneys that Bradley had told her the relationship between Willis and Wade began before November 2021, when Wade was hired as a special prosecutor in the Trump case.

The filing does not include a sworn affidavit from Yeager about her conversations with Bradley, and there’s no indication she has any personal knowledge of Willis and Wade’s relationship.

It is not clear what impact, if any, the filing will have on efforts to disqualify Willis from prosecuting the election interference case. Judge Scott McAfee held evidentiary hearings over several days last month, where both sides called witnesses to testify. He has so far rebuffed requests from the DA’s office and the defense side to reopen the evidence in the case.

Yeager was never subpoenaed or called to the stand during last month’s hearings.

Trump and several of his co-defendants argue that Willis has financially benefitted from hiring Wade as special prosecutor in the case. They are now asking McAfee to remove her from the prosecution.

Both Willis and Wade have acknowledged a personal relationship, but testified that it did not begin until 2022 — after Wade began working on the case.

In Monday’s filing, Shafer attorneys Craig Gillen and Holly Pierson said that if the judge reopens evidence pertaining to the misconduct allegation, their client would offer testimony from Yeager about her conversations with Bradley between August 2023 and January of this year.

Yeager, Shafer said, would testify that Bradley told her that Willis and Wade “had definitively begun a romantic relationship” by the time that “Ms. Willis was running for District Attorney in 2019 through 2020,” and that Bradley “had personal knowledge of the relationship.”

Bradley testified last week he had no such knowledge.

According to the filing, Yeager would also testify that on one occasion when Bradley was in her office, Willis called him “in response to an article that was published about how much money Mr. Wade and his law partners had been paid in this case. Ms. Yeager heard District Attorney Willis tell Mr. Bradley: ‘They are coming after us. You don’t need to talk to them about anything about us.’”

A spokesperson for Willis’ office declined to comment on the new filing. Willis and Wade have denied any wrongdoing, and Adam Abbate of the DA’s office called the misconduct allegations against Willis an attempt “to impugn her reputation.”

McAfee said at the conclusion of Friday’s arguments over the allegations that he expects to issue a ruling in the next two weeks.

If Willis is removed because of the misconduct allegations, her entire office would be disqualified as well. In such a scenario, there’s a possibility that the election interference case could end up in Cobb County.

Blayne Alexander reported from Atlanta, and Dareh Gregorian reported from New York.