Stormy Daniels’ lawyer says will ‘hit harder’ to beat Trump in 2020
WASHINGTON: As the lawyer for adult film star Stormy Daniels, Michael Avenatti has been a persistent thorn in Donald Trump’s side.
But in the last few days, Avenatti has gone a step further, strongly suggesting he is ready to take on the president in the 2020 elections and positioning himself as someone tough enough to take on Trump in a bare-knuckles battle for the White House.
“I’m going to put Donald Trump on trial,” he said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” “The only question is how many jurors are we going to have in that trial.”
Ave nat ti, who represents Daniels in the legal dispute over her claim that a Trump lawyer paid her to remain silent about an alleged affair with the future president, traveled to the Iowa State Fair on Thursday — an almost mandatory stop for presidential aspirants in the first state to hold a presidential nominating contest every four years.
“I’m exploring a run for the presidency of the United States,” the California-based attorney told the Des Moines Register newspaper, in an unusually direct statement so early in the game.
In his speech Friday to the Iowa Democratic Wing Ding dinner — where Democratic presidential hopefuls vie to raise their profiles — he portrayed himself as a street fighter ready to aggressively take on Trump.
Too many Democratic candidates, Avenatti said, “have a tendency to bring nail clippers to a gunfight.”
Referring to former first lady Michelle Obama’s famous quote that “when they go low, we go high,” Avenatti offered a less
I’m going to put Donald Trump on trial. Michael Avenatti
polished version: “When they go low, I say we hit harder.”
Ave nat ti argued against showing too much restraint, saying, “The moment we are living in is grave. It is critical. Trump doesn’t have the character, the heart, the knowledge or the wisdom to be president of the United States.”
In Avenatti’s ABC interview, perhaps his first as a potential presidential candidate, he was asked about a range of issues.
He said the biggest national security threats facing the US are “North Korea and Iran.”
Avenatti said Trump’s highprofile meeting in Singapore with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had amounted to little more than “a photo-op in front of some flags and a red carpet.” As regards Iran, he criticized Trump for sending out “an allcaps tweet in the middle of the night in a situation that is that serious.”
In contrast to Trump, he said he would release at least some of his tax returns.