Former attorney Michael Avenatti is speaking out from prison to attack the hush money case against former President Donald Trump.
Avenatti, who is in prison for extortion and fraud, spoke about the charges against Trump stemming an investigation into hush money payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election.
The former lawyer was sentenced to four years in prison in 2022 for stealing from Daniels, who he represented.
On Tuesday, MSNBC’s Ari Melber noted Avenatti had a role in bringing the case to light and and asked, “How do you assess the strength of the prosecution’s case?”
“Well, I think what I’m about to say is going to surprise a lot of people, and that is that I think this is the wrong case, at the wrong time, Ari. I think that the case is in many way 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,” he continued.
Listen to his comments below:
Michael Avenatti is doing MSNBC hits from prison defending Donald Trump.
— ALX
What is 2024?
pic.twitter.com/8BD5Yip6Wz(@alx) April 10, 2024
Avenatti went on to warn against depriving “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 explained he hoped Trump would have faced charges related to the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol in 2021 and expressed his belief it would have prevented “the situation that we’re in right now” from occurring.
Despite his criticism of the hush money prosecution, the former attorney said, “I think the case has a lot of problems. Now that does not —I don’t mean to suggest that that means that Trump will not be convicted because I think he will be convicted.”
“And I think it rests on a legally tenuous theory, namely that the crime that was attempted to be covered up was a federal election crime. I think that could be a problem potentially on appeal for the state,” he continued. “And I think it’s going be tested on appeal when Trump is convicted. And again, I think he will be convicted. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going hold up.”
Finally, he said, “I believe if you’re going bring a case against a sitting president or a former president, who tens of millions of people support, especially in today’s day and age with how divided we are, I think it needs to be a rock-solid, lock tight, nearly perfect prosecuted case. Because otherwise, you run a huge risk as to what it’s going mean for the country.”
