(Bloomberg) -- The reputed star witness at the misconduct hearing of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis faltered when testifying about when her romance started with the special prosecutor leading the case against Donald Trump.

That witness, attorney Terrence Bradley, failed to deliver a knockout blow Tuesday in a two-hour hearing in Atlanta state court, where a judge is weighing whether to disqualify Willis and the prosecutor she hired, Nathan Wade.

Trump co-defendant Michael Roman had claimed in a Jan. 8 motion that Willis benefited financially by hiring Wade in November 2021 because he earned more than $650,000 and they took vacations together. 

Roman’s attorney, Ashleigh Merchant, also claims Bradley told her before she filed the motion that the romance began before Willis hired Wade. Both Willis and Wade testified this month the affair started in early 2022 and ended in mid-2023, meaning Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee must decide who’s telling the truth and who’s lying. 

Before the hearing began Feb. 15, McAfee said Bradley, Wade’s former divorce lawyer and law partner, would be the “star witness” on when the affair began. 

Bradley testified earlier he couldn’t address that question because it was covered by attorney-client privilege. The judge interviewed Bradley privately on Monday and ordered him to take the stand again on Tuesday. 

In questioning Tuesday by Merchant and other defense lawyers, Bradley repeatedly said he couldn’t recall when the relationship began. He said he was “speculating” in his communications with Merchant. He insisted he had a single conversation with Wade on the topic, and he was fuzzy on the details.

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“I recall him stating that at some point they were dating,” Bradley said. “I can’t tell you what date it was.”

He said they spoke in the back of their office with no one else present. Pressed on whether he spoke again with Wade about it, Bradley said: “I do not recall any other time that he mentioned that they were in a relationship.”

Trump attorney Steve Sadow expressed incredulity at Bradley’s repeated assertion that he was speculating in his early January exchange with Merchant. 

“You know what the truth is,” Sadow said. “What you want the court to believe and you want the rest of us to believe is that for some unknown reason when asked about when the relationship began you simply speculated.”

McAfee must decide whether to disqualify Willis, Wade and the district attorney’s office from the case. If he removes Willis, the sprawling racketeering case against Trump and 14 remaining co-defendants will likely stall until a new prosecutor is appointed. Four defendants have pleaded guilty. 

Trump, the leading Republican candidate to challenge President Joe Biden for the White House, faces three other indictments. 

McAfee will hold a March 1 hearing for arguments on the motion and whether to allow into evidence cell phone records submitted by Sadow suggesting Wade and Willis texted nearly 10,000 times and talked 2,000 times in the first 11 months of 2021.

The phone records also show Wade was in Willis’ neighborhood at least 35 times over that period, and he twice spent several hours there late at night, according to an affidavit from a private investigator hired by the defense.

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