Michael Avenatti, the attorney for Stormy Daniels, has responded on his client’s behalf to the president’s 3 AM tweet about the case this morning.
The adult film star and director, who is suing to be released from a non-disclosure agreement that prevents her from speaking about the details of her affair with President Trump, went on the View yesterday to release a sketch of the man she alleges threatened her in a Las Vegas parking lot. Daniels claims the anonymous thug approached her and her daughter and warned her against talking about her affair with Trump.
Michael Avenatti and Stormy Daniels revealed this sketch on The View. It is of the man who allegedly threatened her over Trump. $100K reward for info leading to his identification. Send scoops to IDthethug@gmail.com! pic.twitter.com/uEPGrFPzBI
— Adam Best (@adamcbest) April 17, 2018
Trump has previously only commented on the Daniels suit once before, denying any knowledge of the $130,000 hush money payment to reporters in an informal White House press encounter. These public comments were essentially an admission that no attorney-client privilege existed between him and his personal fixer Michael Cohen in the case and set up the conditions that resulted in the raid on Cohen’s homes and offices to seize documents and electronic devices last week.
Apparently, the tactical misstep by Trump in breaking his silence on the lawsuit didn’t teach the president any lessons as he typed his middle of the night tweet commenting on the sketch revealed yesterday.
A sketch years later about a nonexistent man. A total con job, playing the Fake News Media for Fools (but they know it)! https://t.co/9Is7mHBFda
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 18, 2018
Avenatti, who was also burning the midnight oil, saw Trump’s tweet and almost immediately responded with an expression of gratitude that he was facing an adversary who was so easily goaded into rash and ultimately self-damaging comments.
In my experience, there is nothing better in litigation than having a completely unhinged, undisciplined opponent who is prone to shooting himself in the foot. Always leads to BIGLY problems…like new claims (i.e. defamation). LOL. #xmas #hanukkah #basta
— Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) April 18, 2018
Avenatti’s not so veiled threat of filing a defamation suit against the president was prompted by Trump’s accusations of Daniels’ claims as being a “con job,” a characterization that Daniels’ lawyer welcomed so warmly as fodder for a case that he included the hashtags #xmas and #hanukkah to make sure everyone else saw it as the gift that he interpreted it as.
His own characterization of the president as unhinged and undisciplined would be difficult to label as defamation of Trump himself, since the president’s own actions fit the description so perfectly that they would be hard to dispute.
For Daniels’ part, her status as a public figure now that she’s been embroiled in the dispute with Cohen over the non-disclosure agreement may make any defamation suit impossible to win, but as part of a strategy to keep the case front and center in the media, it works perfectly,
Stormy Daniels’ activities are hitting Trump where it hurts and prodding him to react emotionally and impulsively, making mistakes that come back to haunt him later. She has him right where she wants him.
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