He was the left’s superstar, representing all the anti-Trump hopes and dreams of Washington Democrats and the mainstream media. His unwavering confidence that he could take down President Trump one way or another bolstered Democrats dreams of impeaching the President. But now, following the embarrassment of his failure to do any harm to the President, Michael Avenatti made a rare admission to CBS News Tuesday, saying he’s “scared” by the charges leveled against him.
Avenatti told CBS’ Jericka Duncan, “Of course I’m nervous.” The interview, which aired yesterday had Avenatti admitting, “I am nervous. I’m concerned. I’m scared. I feel terribly for my family. I feel bad for my friends.”
According to the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (SDNY), Avenatti attempted to extort millions from Nike not only for his client- but for himself as well. After purportedly working on the behalf of an AAU amateur basketball team, with which Nike had recently lost a large contract worth more than $70,000 a year, Avenatti leveraged illegal and extortionate threats against the sneaker manufacturer.
The coach of the AAU league team said Avenatti threatened to take certain allegations to the media if Nike did not give in to his demands by giving $1.5 million to his client. Needless to say, the coach was not comfortable with his underhanded tactics.
The timing of this maneuver was also rather suspicious as Avenatti chose to hold off on it right up until the upcoming March Madness events and the moment that Nike was about to report its Q1 earnings. Avenatti went so far, at one point, as to threaten to take $10 billion off of Nike’s market cap.
Nike’s lawyers contacted federal investigators to report the extortion attempt after their initial conversation with the creepy porn lawyer. The federal prosecutor advised Nike to record their next conversation with Avenatti, and they did.
“I’m not f—ing around with this, and I’m not continuing to play games. You guys know enough now to know you’ve got a serious problem. And it’s worth more in exposure to me to just blow the lid on this thing. A few million dollars doesn’t move the needle for me. I’m just being really frank with you.”
When Nike’s lawyers called him on his bluff, Avenatti said he could just skip the investigation if they would agree to pay him $22 million.
The SDNY described the incident as an “old-fashioned shakedown.”
One reporter pointed out that Avenatti should have noticed that Nike was setting him up to incriminate himself. It appears the only one to whom the set up was not obvious was Avenatti himself.
CBS News tweeted the following, “Officials call Michael Avenatti ‘a corrupt lawyer’ who ‘fights for his own selfish interests,’ say the allegations against him ‘paint an ugly picture of lawless conduct and greed.’”
Prosecutors are now saying that the timing of Avenatti’s extortion attempt against Nike suggested that he believed the information he had on them was a sure-fire prosecution. Avenatti believed he had uncovered evidence that Nike was illegally bribing young athletes and their families. All of this has come to light at the same time as prosecutors from California were closing in on other illegal dealings by the creepy porn lawyer.
Even his former client, “Stormy” Daniels has turned against him. She tweeted a statement saying that Avenatti had dealt with her “extremely dishonestly” and that she would be delivering more announcements in the near future. Her statement included that she was “saddened, but not shocked” by these new revelations.
Well, it’s been a hell of a week for the Democrats. With the Mueller investigation finally revealed as a dud, the delivery of exceedingly low popularity polls for some of the new “fresh Democratic faces” in Congress, and with Avenatti in federal custody- the Trump administration is coming up aces.
Even now, anchors at CNN and MSNBC are scrambling for explanations and excuses for all of this. They are saying that Mueller was a Trump agent all along, that Avenatti was set up, and that the unpopularity of the new Democrats is due to the racism and sexism of the American voter.
All the while, the Democratic Party is bleeding support and prominent left-wing news outlets are on life support.
