Just when we all thought this case couldn't get any nuttier. A late filing yesterday in the disqualification hearing might force Judge Scott McAfee to reopen the evidentiary portion of the hearing. Or it might send him running for the hills, and who would blame him?

According to an attorney representing David Schaefer in the Georgia v Donald Trump et al RICO prosecution, a new witness has stepped forward to corroborate Terrence Bradley's text messages to Ashleigh Merchant. But even more dangerously for Fulton County DA Fani Willis, Cindi Lee Yeager will supposedly provide direct testimony that Willis directed Bradley to keep his mouth shut about her affair with Nathan Wade:

A new witness could testify Fani Willis warned lover Nathan Wade’s former business partner to stay quiet about their affair, an explosive new court filing claims.

“They are coming after us. You don’t need to talk to them about anything about us,” Willis is alleged to have warned Terrence Bradley in a September 2023 phone call.

The call was overheard by Cobb County, Georgia, prosecutor Cindi Lee Yeager, according to court papers filed Monday by Trump co-defendant David Schafer.

Yeager will apparently also testify that Willis lied about the start of her affair with Nathan Wade based on her conversations with Bradley, but that might be secondary at this point. If Yeager directly witnessed Willis telling Bradley not to talk to investigators for the defense in the case, that would arguably mean witness tampering by the prosecuting office. The triggering event was contemporaneous reporting on the massive amount of fees Willis had already paid Wade in the case ($650,000), but the sudden interest on those payments were bound to start having investigators probing why Willis authorized such an enormous amount of fees to an attorney who'd never tried a felony case in his career.  If the filing is on the level, it indicates that Willis was already worried about having their sexual relationship exposed.

Willis may argue in opposition to Schaefer's filing that Bradley wasn't material to the case and the motivation was to simply prevent personal embarrassment, but this wasn't the only case involved.  Don't forget that Wade had filed for his divorce nearly two years prior to September 2023.  By the point of this alleged call, Wade had dragged out discovery for so long that he'd get cited for contempt shortly after this. If the Willis-Wade affair began before Wade filed for divorce in November 2021 -- within a day of being hired by Willis for the RICO case -- then that would be material to the divorce case and Joycelyn Wade's counter-claims. And by that time, Mrs. Wade and her attorney had been trying to prove her husband's infidelity for some time. Telling Bradley to shut up may have been Willis' attempt to interfere in the divorce proceeding on Wade's behalf.

Either way, it looks exceedingly strange for a district attorney to warn material witnesses not to cooperate with defense attorneys, regardless of materiality. In fact, that tends to look like an admission that the information would be material in some way; why else would Willis make calls to keep it quiet? That lends a lot of credence to the claim that Willis' intent was at least in part to evade accounting for an undeclared conflict of interest, and arguably to deceive the courts in not one but two different cases.

The September 2023 time frame is also interesting. Last week, Megyn Kelly and Phil Holloway obtained and published the texts that show Bradley tipping off Merchant to the affair on September 14, 2023. The text conversations continue throughout the month of September, with the affair first being explicitly mentioned on September 18. When specifically did Yeager witness Willis telling Bradley to keep his mouth shut? Before this text exchange, after this, or during it? (The affidavit doesn't specify the exact date.) It's interesting to think about that in light of the nearly four-month gap in the text records (of what we have seen, which of course probably isn't comprehensive). If Fani Willis began leaning on Terrence Bradley to keep quiet, that might explain the gap.

Just in case anyone thinks that Willis couldn't have meant it as an obstructive abuse of her power, let's recall her response to Joycelyn Wade's subpoena. Willis threatened to charge Mrs. Wade with obstructing the RICO case by forcing her to testify in the divorce proceeding. Whatever else Fani Willis is, shy about threatening to exercise her power for her own benefit ain't it.

But why would Willis have that kind of influence and/or pressure on Bradley, not just to stop cooperating in texts but also to testify as badly as he did last month? Bradley doesn't work for Willis and isn't partners with Wade any more either. But let's not forget that Bradley got accused of a sexual assault while being a partner at Nathan Wade's law firm. That came out during Bradley's testimony. Bradley denied the allegations, but one has to wonder whether that issue might have played into Bradley's sudden reversal on the stand -- or maybe even his willingness to keep talking with Merchant in the first place. 

At any rate, Schaefer proposes to have the Cobb County prosecutor testify to the call as well as to Bradley's knowledge of the affair, based on her conversations with Bradley in the summer of 2023. The latter sounds like hearsay, but McAfee might be inclined to allow it as a rebuttal and to corroborate the Bradley-Merchant texts. But if Yeager directly witnessed Willis instructing Bradley not to cooperate with attorneys on this matter, that's not hearsay and it's material to the rapidly multiplying "appearances" of impropriety around this case. There wouldn't be any reason to keep it out, and Yeager's status as a prosecutor will add credibility to her testimony ... even in Fulton County, where credibility is wearing thin at the moment. 

That assumes that McAfee would be inclined to reopen the evidentiary phase of the hearing. Perhaps he might be inclined to do so, but he might also decide that he's heard enough already to boot Fulton County from the case and get out with what's left of his sanity. That won't be the end of the matter, though. If Willis was trying to interfere with defense investigations and/or her boyfriend's divorce, the Georgia State Bar and the state Attorney General's office will take an interest in that no matter what McAfee decides, as well as the perjury that Willis and Wade have arguably committed in court. And McAfee has to know that, too.

Update: A new filing in the case from another co-defendant asks to allow another witness as rebuttal to Bradley's testimony (via Twitchy):

“Mr. Bradley stated that he had personal knowledgeofthe relationship between Mr. ‘Wade and district Attorney Willi, including details regarding the useof Ms. Robin Yeartie’s apartment such as Mi. Wade's having a garage opener to the property” pic.twitter.com/xuVDp9SoFo

— Phil Holloway ✈️ (@PhilHollowayEsq) March 5, 2024

Again, this would normally be considered hearsay, but it would be used to rebut and impeach the witness rather than as a substantive proof of the relationship. McAfee may end up with a deluge of whistleblowers coming forward during this two-week consideration period. Maybe that's what he expected, as a way to make his decision easier to defend.

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• Will this State of the Union be Joe Biden's last? 
• Andrew Malcolm and I discuss those prospects, which depend at least a little on what happens two days earlier on Super Tuesday. 
• Right now it looks like it's all over but the shouting in both nomination chases, but the Supreme Court decision on the 14th Amendment might be a fresh wild card. 

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