Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley sent a new request Friday for the Justice Department to open a second investigation into Michael Avenatti, saying the anti-Trump lawyer lied to Congress through a second affidavit.
“Simply put, the sworn statement Mr. Avenatti provided the committee on October 2 appears to be an outright fraud,” Mr. Grassley wrote in asking the FBI to conduct a review.
Earlier this week Mr. Grassley asked the FBI to look at whether the lawyer and his client Julie Swetnick lied when they alleged Justice Brett Kavanaugh was complicit in gang rapes at high school parties in the 1980s.
Ms. Swetnick’s story changed, though, and her charges remain uncorroborated. Mr. Grassley says Mr. Avenatti appeared to be trying to obstruct the Senate’s confirmation process — a federal crime.
In an effort to back up Ms. Swetnick, Mr. Avenatti in early October submitted another affidavit — though he did not reveal to the committee who it was from.
He did, however, put NBC in touch with the author. But she turned out to blow a hold in Mr. Avenatti’s version.
Over the course of several conversations with the network the woman said she originally only “skimmed” the affidavit Mr. Avenatti filed under her name, but upon looking at it in more detail later she realized it contained falsehoods.
After NBC confronted Mr. Avenatti, he said she must have been mistaken. But when NBC called her back, she again repeated that the affidavit contained false statements.
NBC reported: “At one point, in an apparent effort to thwart the reporting process, he added in the phone call, “How about this, on background, it’s not the same woman. What are you going to do with that?”
Mr. Grassley concluded: “When reporters pressed him on these discrepancies, Mr. Avenatti attempted to deceive them in an apparent effort to thwart the truth coming out.”
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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