Whole 'Nother Terrence!

I've echoed the puzzlement of several commentators here over the past couple of weeks -- why did Anna Cross, the counsel in the DA's office representing Willis and Wade, suddenly, gratuitously, and viciously attack Terrence Bradley on the witness stand by bringing up the sexual harassment allegations against him, when Bradley appeared to be doing nothing to damage their interests? After all, he was trying his hardest to have his testimony excluded on the basis of attorney-client privilege.

Let's start with what's obvious. Ashleigh Merchant, the attorney for Trump co-defendant Michael Roman, is a blonde bombshell. As it happens, she is also one of the most prominent Georgia defense attorneys -- one of her cases, entirely unrelated, was featured on A&E's Taking the Stand just two weeks ago. Nevertheless, that notwithstanding, I suspect Judge McAfee, and likely many other judges, feels his day goes just a little bit better any time she's in his courtroom. She is aware of this and takes full advantage of it.

This is a normal male impulse. As an avid fan of On Patrol: Live and the previous Live PD, I can't avoid noting that almost all the departments that allow the show to follow their officers feature one or more female officers who are in fact stunningly attractive -- at least one does beauty pageants on her off duty days. I've remarked to my wife that if I knew one of those officers would be the one to pull me over, I'd make an illegal left turn and risk a ticket right in front of her just to get ten minutes of her time and attention while she asked me questions about myself.

So let's apply this to the case of poor Terrence Bradley, who came off in his testimony Tuesday as "a combination of imbecilic and an amnesiac" and in fact appeared to be a staunch Willis-Wade loyalist. Why were they out to get him? The answer is Ashleigh Merchant. He'd been texting her back and forth since last fall, and the difference between then and yesterday is, as one commentator put it, "a whole 'nother Terrence".

Bradley’s testimony on Tuesday, when he frequently couldn’t remember details and seemed uncomfortable with the line of questioning, stands in stark contrast to the tone of his prior text messages with Merchant.

The additional text messages [released yesterday] show Bradley calling Merchant his “friend,” offering unsolicited advice, and also bashing Willis and Wade, Bradley’s former law partner.

Bradley left their law firm in 2022 after allegations surfaced that Bradley sexually assaulted an employee at the firm. Bradley denied those allegations while testifying at an earlier hearing over Willis’s potential disqualification.

Over months of texts, Bradley on a number of occasions disparaged Wade and Willis, calling them “arrogant as f” in one January text to Merchant.

Bradley also indicated that he didn’t want to be directly connected to the allegations and expressed a desire not to be named as the initial source of the information.

“I protected you completely,” Merchant told Bradley about the draft of her motion to disqualify. “Not that you need protection,” Merchant texted. “But I kept you out of it.”

“I really appreciate you keeping me out of,” Bradley replied.

So the answer to the question of why Willis and Wade would have their counsel trash Terrence in public is that Terrence had been trashing them behind their backs for months, and they'd belatedly become aware of it despite Terrence's best efforts. And a good part of the reason for that is that Terrence had been charmed by a beautiful woman who was also very smart. In fact, she was both pretty enough and smart enough to use Terrence to get to Willis and Wade -- the dirt Terrence so eagerly gave her became the foundation of her case for her client and was bound to become a public record, with Terrence as the source.

Terrence, an attorney, should maybe have had an inkling, although it looks like the Wade Bradley Campbell law firm were personal injury attorneys and not well informed about other areas of the law. Terrence, Wade,and Willis were outsmarted by a very pretty attorney who was also very smart. The attack on Terrence from Wade and Willis was delayed payback, and I can't completely blame them, except they all let themselves be outplayed by a highly skilled operator.