Stormy Daniels’ ex-lawyer isn’t a fan of the Stormy Daniels business-fraud case.
In a jailhouse interview published Monday, Michael Avenatti laid into the case currently being tried now in New York against former President Donald Trump, calling it “absolute overkill” and election interference.
“I certainly see [Mr. Trump] as a victim of the system,” he told Fox News Digital.
“That’s something that I never thought I would say,” said the man who spent years as a go-to anti-Trump talking head on cable-news shows. “If Michael Avenatti is coming to his defense, and I was one of his staunchest opponents for a very significant period of time, that should tell people something.”
Avenatti, who was sentenced to four years in prison for stealing from Ms. Daniels when he was her lawyer, called the four separate criminal cases against Mr. Trump “absolute overkill” against the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.
“You’ve got a group of individuals in the United States who have decided that they know better as to who should be the next president, and they’ve decided that they don’t want to leave it to ‘the little guy,’” he said. “So they’re going to take matters into their own hands to prevent those people from being heard, and I am deeply disturbed and disgusted by it.”
Avenatti told Fox that Mr. Trump’s fate should be “settled at the ballot box” and accused the Democratic prosecutors in the four jurisdictions of personal aggrandizement.
“If the defendant was anybody other than Donald Trump, this stale case would not be being brought right now,” he said. “He has definitely been targeted … There is no question that these prosecutors are trying to make a name for themselves.”
The lawyer also told Fox that he has talked with Mr. Trump’s legal team about testifying in the New York case — which centers on claims that Mr. Trump falsified business records to cover up hush money sent to Ms. Daniels to keep her quiet during the 2016 presidential election about her claims of an affair.
• Victor Morton can be reached at vmorton@washingtontimes.com.
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