Stormy Daniels’ ex-lawyer, Michael Avenatti, told the New York Post that President Donald Trump’s legal defense team has been reaching out to him.
“The defense has contacted me,” Avenatti said. The disgraced attorney has been serving a 19-year sentence after being convicted of extortion, tax evasion, fraud, embezzlement, and other federal crimes.
“I’d be more than happy to testify; I don’t know that I will be called to testify, but I have been in touch with Trump’s defense for the better part of the year,” the former lawyer added.
A source familiar with Trump’s case confirmed an ongoing discussion with Avenatti.
Before being imprisoned, Avenatti was Trump’s staunch critic. He even advocated for the former president’s indictment.
Avenatti clarified that he did not know what he would be called to testify, but he would be willing to participate as he likens his conviction to Trump’s situation and slammed the charges against him as “politically motivated.”
The former attorney said, “I think that we were both targeted by the justice system.”
“There’s a lot of people on the left that were very concerned about my potential rise within the Democratic Party and my potential rise in Democratic politics, and the fact that I was not someone that was easily controlled.”
In an interview with MSNBC last week from prison, Avenatti described Trump’s bogus New York trial as “stale.”
Speaking with Host Ari Melber, he remarked: “I think what I’m about to say is going to surprise a lot of people, and that is that, you know, I think this is the wrong case at the wrong time, Ari. I think that the case is, in many ways, stale at this juncture.”
“You’re talking about conduct that occurred some eight years ago. I think the fact that it’s occurring in state court in New York is a mistake. And I think that when you are going to potentially deprive tens of millions of Americans of their choice for the presidency of the United States, whether we agree with those folks or not or regardless of what we may think of Donald Trump, I think it’s a mistake to do it based on a case of this nature,” he added.
Avenatti also predicted that Trump would likely be convicted because he wouldn’t get a fair trial in New York.
“I don’t think he can get a fair trial in New York. And to the people who claim that in fact, he can get a fair trial in New York with a New York jury, I would ask them if they were to go to sleep tonight and wake up tomorrow and find out that the case had been moved to Mississippi or Alabama, would they still think the trial was going to be fair? I think if they were being honest, they would answer no.”
Avenatti also shared some details on his fall out with Daniels, claiming that “what I had been sold by Miss Daniels relating to how this payment had come about and what I had subsequently advocated on television and others in reliance on what she had told me, turned out to be completely false.”
