In what appears to be a direct reprisal by President Trump towards attorney Michael Avenatti, the FBI will not be looking into his client Julie Swetnick’s sexual assault accusations against Brett Kavanaugh, Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court.
Avenatti is the lawyer who also represents Stormy Daniels, the adult film star whose struggle to be free of a non-disclosure agreement about her affair with Trump resulted in a guilty plea for felony campaign finance violations from Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen and also implicated the president in the criminal activity. Trump naturally has no love for Avenatti, the one figure in the resistance who can outmatch the president in manipulating the media to bring attention to his messages.
Michael Avenatti certainly thinks that Trump’s latest move will undermine the legitimacy of the FBI’s probe, as he expressed in a series of tweets responding to the news.
If true, this is a serious problem that will undermine the legitimacy of the entire process. https://t.co/x2a8Hs7FNg via @CBSPolitics
— Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) September 29, 2018
If true, this is outrageous. Why are Trump and his cronies in the Senate trying to prevent the American people from learning the truth? Why do they insist on muzzling women with information submitted under penalty of perjury? Why Ramirez but not my client? https://t.co/TwoAKXDWrH
— Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) September 29, 2018
Trump has now determined that he and he alone will be the sole arbiter of whether a woman’s claims of sexual assault and misogyny are credible. Why even have an FBI investigation? I thought it was their job to make this determination. He and Kavanaugh are afraid of the truth.
— Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) September 29, 2018
Avenatti had presciently warned about an attempt to limit the scope of the investigation in a previous tweet before the news of the FBI limitations in their probe was disclosed.
It is critically important that the public be informed of any hidden effort to limit the scope of the FBI investigation. The scope should be unlimited and the FBI should be tasked with determining whether an allegation is credible – as they do every day in this country.
— Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) September 29, 2018
With Avenatti’s client already having provided a sworn statement attesting to the circumstances that she witnessed personally, it’s unclear what outside of personal animus is motivating Trump to prevent the FBI from questioning her under the threat of criminal penalties for dissembling.
Avenatti’s conclusion that Trump and Kavanaugh are afraid that the truth will be revealed if the FBI is truly given the “free reign” that the president claims to have given them certainly seems like the most likely explanation for this most squirrely move yet by the administration in the attempt to place their chosen right-wing ideologue in a lifetime seat on the nation’s highest court.
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