After the FBI raided the home, office and hotel room of Michael Cohen, the longtime personal attorney to President Donald Trump, the lawyer representing porn actress Stormy Daniels in her lawsuit against Cohen and Trump said he felt sorry for Cohen.
“Part of me feels sorry for him,” Michael Avenatti told MSNBC on Monday evening.
Avenatti suggested that Cohen will have to take the fall for Trump and that he will “fold” when faced with federal investigators.
“He’s going to be expected to be the fall guy, the scapegoat. I don’t think he’s going to hold up,” Avenatti said. “I think, when push comes to shove, he’s going to fold like a cheap deck of cards.”
During appearances on several television shows following the raid, Avenatti speculated on the FBI raid and the Stormy Daniels lawsuit. He told MSNBC’s Ari Melber that he believes Cohen will plead the Fifth Amendment if faced with a deposition in the Stormy Daniels case in light of the raid.
He also speculated that Cohen may have lied to the First Republic Bank when he obtained a loan and set up bank accounts to pay Daniels $130,000 in exchange for her silence on her alleged affair with Trump.
“We have substantial reason to believe that when Michael Cohen opened the bank accounts at First Republic Bank for the purposes of wiring this money, that he was not truthful and honest with the bank as to the purpose of those accounts and what they were designed to be used for,” Avenatti said on CNN.
Avenatti also posted several tweets responding to Trump’s claim that the raid was part of a “witch hunt” and suggestion that the FBI ignored attorney-client privilege.
A well-regarded Republican appointed US Atty obtaining valid search warrants, approved by a judge, that are then then carried out by career, upstanding FBI agents doing their job to search for the truth is NOT A WITCH HUNT. Period. #basta
— Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) April 10, 2018
I use the attorney-client privilege. I know the attorney-client privilege. The attorney-client privilege is a friend of mine. And the attorney-client privilege is not dead. What is dead is using the privilege to hide illegal acts. And that has been dead for a long time. #basta
— Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) April 10, 2018