Analysis: Did Michael Avenatti help doom the case against Brett Kavanaugh?

[mahatmakanejeeves]

David Fahrenthold Retweeted:

Analysis: Did Michael Avenatti help doom the case against Brett Kavanaugh?

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The Fix • Analysis

Did Michael Avenatti help doom the case against Brett Kavanaugh?

By Aaron Blake
October 5 at 6:22 PM

The idea of Michael Avenatti running for president seemed ridiculous to most observers at the start. Gradually, it has seemed perhaps less so. If Democrats want to fight fire with fire, after all, they could probably do worse than Stormy Daniels’s lawyer. Avenatti did play a major role in eventually getting Michael Cohen to implicate President Trump in a federal crime.

Avenatti’s latest major turn in the political spotlight, though, hasn’t gone so well.

With Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh having just secured the 50th and 51st votes to assure his confirmation, attention has turned to Avenatti’s role in the failed effort. After the media unearthed and vetted accusations by Kavanaugh’s first two accusers, Christine Blasey Ford and Deborah Ramirez, Avenatti decided to skip the middle man with a third. ... After several days of making the cable TV rounds teasing his new client, he released a sworn affidavit from Julie Swetnick that not only included the most serious accusations to date — that Kavanaugh appeared to have participated in gang rapes — but also did so with the least corroboration.
....

Democrats probably aren’t terribly eager right now to engage in second-guessing people like Avenatti, to whom they should be legitimately grateful for his past work. They’ll be much more interesting in airing complaints about the GOP-led process that arrived at Kavanaugh’s presumptive confirmation. And perhaps this was just not a winnable battle, period.

But politicians make decisions about when to insert themselves into issues. And Avenatti, to the extent he’s going to be a Democratic politician and a voice for that party, made a move here that will cause the party to evaluate his wisdom.

Aaron Blake is senior political reporter, writing for The Fix. A Minnesota native, he has also written about politics for the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the Hill newspaper. Follow https://twitter.com/aaronblake

mahatmakanejeeves

[FarPoint]

1. Michael Avenatti...

He is a Gladiator..... I'm open to reporting and/ or Alerting on such Democratic trashing here on DU....

[mahatmakanejeeves]

2. Speaking of the University of Virginia, its founder, Thomas Jefferson, said:

Last edited Sat Oct 6, 2018, 08:02 PM - Edit history (1)

"This institution will be based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind. For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it."
- Thomas Jefferson to William Roscoe, December 27, 1820

Follow Truth (Quotation)

A portion of that quote became the motto of the student newspaper, the Cavalier Daily.

mahatmakanejeeves

[FarPoint]

12. Copy/ paste ...

No discussion. .......on a discussion board .....flaimbait . .there you are

[MadDAsHell]

10. He's not a Democratic public figure. He holds no office; he's a lawyer.

What term of service do you think people are violating by being upset with Avenatti? What rule will you cite in your alert?

[FarPoint]

14. Yes he is ...

You are just not paying close attention... research his history and goals

[MadDAsHell]

15. You're nt

[FarPoint]

16. Don't behave/ post anyways with personal passive aggressive attacks...

May things go better for you tomorrow ..

[Squinch]

3. Answer: No. And shut the fuck up with this bullshit, David.

[FarPoint]

5. I second that option...

[Thekaspervote]

6. I 3rd it!

[OnDoutside]

4. I hope he learns the lesson of this....he's got to have everything lined

up correctly, or they will tear into him.

[Squinch]

11. What did he not have lined up correctly? Should he have had more than the twenty-some

corroborating witnesses for the FBI not to contact?

I hope WE learn the lesson of this: when things appear in the news - and all over the news, because suddenly there are tons of nameless "Democratic staffers" complaining about Avenatti - and those things trash Democrats or people fighting for Democrats, we need to tell them where to shove it.

[OnDoutside]

24. A polygraph for example ? That alone was a major hook in Dr Ford's case, for a lot of people.

Avenatti only said that Ms Swetnick would be willing to take one if Kavanaugh took one.

[Squinch]

25. SMH. A woman can't come forward unless she has a polygraph? That's crazy.

[OnDoutside]

26. In normal times you might have a point, but Avenatti left an open goal by making the biggest claim

of the three accusations and having nothing to back it up when they went public, apart from 4 witnesses, her deceased mother, 2 they couldn't find and one who said they didn't know who Swetnick was. That gave the opportunity for the RW to jump all over him. For all the wins he has had in the year, this took a little of the shine off him.

[unblock]

7. Oh ffs!

The media and the right-wing always insist that every aspect of every everything "the left" does is 100% beyond reproach perfect.

Then they insist that the slightest shortcoming on "the left" explains or every justifies whatever horrible monstrosity the right does.

If there are 7 sexual violence-related allegations and one of them may not have the same level of immediate proof, he's still a belligerent alcoholic vindictive hyper-partisan conspiracy-theorizing perjurer without the temperament to be in the court!

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

8. No, the fix was always in.

But I don't think he helped, either.

[still_one]

9. No. The nomination was never going to be rejected, it was a setup with

all the drama. They knew they had the votes before it started

[MustLoveBeagles]

13. Bingo!

[LenaBaby61]

27. "No. The nomination was never going to be rejected, it was a setup."

THIS ^^^^

IF Avenatti had come forward with an accuser who had Kavanaugh tape-recorded taunting her, throwing it up in her face that he got away with raping her, this nomination still would have gone through. Thuglicans have the #'s on their side. They have lawless gaul on their side. Their lawless and don't CARE what Dems think. thuglicans have the "We don't give a fuck about the rule of law muthafukkers" on their side. The 2016 General Election was rigged and tRump was always going to win. Didn't matter that Hillary Clinton was the nominee. ANY Dem would have lost to tRump. thuglicans with their gerrymandering, voter cross-checking, voter purging in the 3 states that tRump HAD to win (Wisconsin, Pa., and Michigan), to garner the presidency he WON by 77,000 or so votes. Plus, tRump colluded with the ruskies who interfered in that GE. The ruskies are STILL interfering into our elections, and who knows what they'll try to do to help thuglicans in the 2018 Mid-Terms? tRump nor his minions are doing anything to stop them because they don't want to. And if you notice the drumbeat of accusation, tRump keeps saying that the Chinese were the ones who meddled into our 2016 GE when we know that's not the case. It was and still is the ruskies.

WHAT is he trying to set up by saying that the Chinese are interfering into our elections?

[still_one]

28. I agree Lena

[Scruffy1]

33. Exactly.

He came close, but no one is going to stop the Republicans except death and elections. More lame column inches from a hack Put he blame where it belongs.

[LoisB]

29. Exactly!

[2naSalit]

30. Yup...nt

[rzemanfl]

17. Soon you too can have 1,300 plus views and zero recs. n/t

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[still_one]

31. While I don't agree with the OPs/editorals view on this, there are a lot of threads posted that get

no recommendations

Sometimes a thread is started just to engage in comments from an opinion

[Gothmog]

18. Fewer people pay attention to avenatti than he thinks

I have been ignoring him for some time. Avenatti actually had little to do with M. Cohen. The warrant to search Cohen's offices and apartment was in the works long before Avenatti showed up and Avenatti had nothing to do with this process. He is a great marketer but the courts and the DOJ do not pay any attention to him

[mahatmakanejeeves]

19. That's pretty much my take on him.

My view: he's a grandstanding blowhard who likes to get his face on TV and churn up new clients.

Acta non verba.

mahatmakanejeeves

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

20. Some think he's our next political savior. He isn't.

[Gothmog]

22. I know a good number fo Plaintiff lawyers

I doubt that they would make good candidates or office holders

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

23. Me too, even did a little now and then, though mostly appellate stuff.

Plaintiffs' lawyers tend to be in-your-face sorts of people, which can be a useful trait in political campaigns but not so much when actually holding office.

[Gothmog]

32. Make no mistake, I have good friends who are plaintiff lawyers

I have worked with these lawyers on cases and was the case originator for some fun contingent fee cases. I just do not think that these lawyers are good at policy making

[onecaliberal]

21. Avenatti is not a senate Republican, stop spreading Republican talking points.