Friday, March 01, 2024

Texts Are Not Testimony

Which says something about the quality of his testimony. So, there are now 413 known texts between Ashleigh Merchant and Terrance Bradley.
There were 413 texts exchanged between a key witness, Terrence Bradley, and Ashleigh Merchant, an attorney for defendant Michael Roman, one of Trump’s co-defendants, helping her build a case that suggested the prosecutor engaged in an improper romance, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution who reported acquiring the text message evidence. 
Bradley helped Merchant's defendant prepare efforts to dismiss Willis by accusing her of misconduct by hiring personal injury attorney Nathan Wade as a special prosecutor in the sweeping criminal case and then carrying on a romance that had them spending suspected taxpayer funds on lavish trips to Napa Valley and the Caribbean.
But Merchant screwed her own pooch.
Before she filed her motion that exposed the relationship, Merchant asked Bradley point blank when the Willis and Wade began dating. 
Merchant asked: "Do you think it started before she hired him." 
“Absolutely,” he told her. 
She also supplied Bradley with an unfixed draft of her motion to suss out any errors and he noted she should include some income he earned from the DA. 
“Anything else? Anything that isn’t accurate?” she asked him in a text. 
“Looks good,” Bradley answered.
But what about the financial angle? You know, the reason to establish a conflict of interest. Fucking may be unseemly in BFE rural Georgia (if you’re that old), but Atlanta? Gimme a break. Besides, Bradley began to show signs of reconsidering the value of his 15 minutes of fame.
 Merchant had claimed that she would try to keep Bradley's identity anonymous telling him she "protected you completely" in the document she filed. 
“I am nervous,” reads a Merchant text from Jan. 8 — the day she filed her motion. 
“This is huge.” 
“You are huge," Bradley told her. "You will be fine. You are one of the best lawyers I know. Go be great.” 
Ultimately Merchant subpoenaed Bradley. 
“I will leave you out but think if I don’t subpoena you it would look fishy,” according to a Jan. 24 text. “What do you want me to do?” 
“I’m ok with it,” Bradley wrote back. 
Bradley also guided Merchant on potential staffers at the DA's office and even her security detail, texting her: “Subpoena them all."

Merchant was looking for gossip, not serious grounds to establish a conflict of interest. Most annoying to me were the tongue-cluckers who blamed Willis for putting herself in the position of being the target of gossip Bradley couldn’t even substantiate. Bradley made it all up, and when it came time to say it under oath, he realized he couldn’t. That would put his law license on the line.

But why let that stop you?

This has never been anything more than a smear campaign. And a desperate, poorly investigated one, at that.
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1 comment:

  1. The Thought Criminal12:06 PM

    The extremely uneven quality of the judiciary is breathtaking. I can't believe he's dragged this out as long as he has, I don't trust him anymore than I do the Supremes.

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