Trump Lawyers Offer New Witness in Effort to Disqualify Fani Willis in Georgia

Defense lawyers in the Georgia election interference case against former President Donald J. Trump say they want to put someone on the stand whose testimony could back up their assertion that Terrence Bradley, a witness in their effort to disqualify the prosecutors running the case, gave misleading testimony.

The new information comes from Cindi Lee Yeager, a deputy district attorney in neighboring Cobb County, Ga., whom the defense lawyers said they spoke to on Friday about conversations she has had with Mr. Bradley.

At issue is a key matter in the disqualification effort: the timing of the romantic relationship that developed between Fani T. Willis, who as the Fulton County district attorney is leading the prosecution of Mr. Trump, and Nathan Wade, the Atlanta-area lawyer she hired to manage the case.

Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade have said that a romance developed between them after she hired him in November 2021. But the defense lawyers have tried to prove the romantic relationship started earlier.

If they are correct that Ms. Willis hired a boyfriend for a lucrative, high-profile job, it might bolster their argument that she engaged in “self-dealing” when she took a number of vacations with Mr. Wade, and thus created a conflict of interest that should result in her removal from the case.

Defense lawyers thought that Mr. Bradley, a former law partner of Mr. Wade who also served for a time as Mr. Wade’s divorce lawyer, might offer some clarity as to when the romance began. But that did not happen. In a text exchange in January, he told one of the defense lawyers in the case that he “absolutely” thought the romance began before Ms. Willis hired Mr. Wade.