Imprisoned attorney Michael Aveni made headlines earlier this year when a one-time adversary of Donald Trump expressed sympathy for the former president amid his multiple criminal charges, prompting observers to return to the Trump White House. When they arrived, they were fishing for forgiveness.
Even now that Trump is president-elect, Avenatti said Fox News Digital from his California prison that he would be an “idiot” to trust her.
“If the president was so inclined, he could show some leniency and commute my sentence or reduce some of the charges,” Avenatti said in a phone interview. “I’m not giving up on that. He’s got a lot of other things on his mind right now. Maybe someday, he’ll sympathize with me, or he won’t. That time and, for that reason, I’m the only one. Trying to do what I need to do and stay close to my family and my faith at this time.”
A liberal media star in 2018, Avenatti rose to prominence with her aggressive representation of Stormy Daniels as she sought to overturn a non-disclosure agreement she signed in 2006 regarding her alleged affair with Trump. What is denied? Daniels was at the center of a New York conviction earlier this year for falsifying business records to conceal payments made to Trump during his 2016 campaign.
Michael Aveni says he would be a “fool” to get his hopes up for a pardon from President-elect Donald Trump. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) (Getty Images)
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Called “an existential threat to the Trump presidency” by Stephen Colbert, Avenatti was a constant television presence in 2018, doing hundreds of interviews on CNN and MSNBC and appearing on the cover of Bill Maher, “The View,” Vogue and Popped up on more.
But as he rises, his life of crime is exposed, including theft from clients, theft of Daniels’ book revenue, and an attempt to extort millions from Nike. Now an inmate at California’s minimum-security Terminal Island federal prison, the 53-year-old says he’s trying to get his life back on track, and now speaks of Trump in almost reverent terms. is
“The president is a force of nature … he is probably the most effective communicator in the modern era, certainly one of the most effective presidential negotiators the nation has known,” he said. said “He’s a fighter. I don’t know of another person who can endure what he’s endured over the last eight years at this point and still be at the top.”
As a fellow multiple indictee, Avenatti said he knows the stress it puts on a person and their family.
“As a guy who’s been there, I don’t know how he did it, but it’s impressive as hell,” he said.
Michael Avenatti spoke to Fox News Digital from his prison in California about the 2024 election and whether he expects a pardon. (Screenshot/FNC)
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Such was his popularity that Avenatti was touted as a potential Democratic presidential candidate in the 2020 run — MSNBC’s Nicole Wallace memorably praised a speech he planned to give in Iowa in 2018. was – but now they say the party is in such bad shape and out of step. That he aligns more with Republicans. He described Trump’s decisive victory over Vice President Kamala Harris as predictable.
“I’m currently a member of the Democratic Party, but that may change once I get out of prison,” he told Fox News Digital. “I can be a Republican because the Democratic Party today is not the Democratic Party I’ve known for the last 30 or 40 years. I’m a Bill Clinton Democrat, and if Bill Clinton ran for president today, he couldn’t. A Democrat would The Republican Party has become the party of the working class, and there are very few problems that I identify with the Democratic Party.”
Aveni added that Democrats were disorganized and had a branding problem, and the former “resistance” leader said such a movement was unlikely to be effectively built in Trump’s second term. It’s unlikely that Democrats would care about his assessment, given the suspended attorney’s badly damaged reputation.
“I think Democrats better start thinking about how they’re going to possibly find some common ground with him moving forward,” he said. “But the whole idea that we’re going to reconstitute the resistance, and we’re going to demonize Trump day after day, and we’re going to engage in Trump derangement syndrome, those days are gone. Nowhere before, And it’s not going anywhere in the coming months.”
President-elect Donald Trump looks on during the UFC 309 event at Madison Square Garden on November 16, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by Chris Unger/Zofa LLC) (Photo by Chris Unger/Zofa LLC)
Many media members will leave you when you don’t serve their narrative, says Michael Avanti.
The disgraced attorney won a legal victory last month when a federal appeals panel overturned his 14-year sentence for stealing millions from his clients in California. The panel found that the sentence was based on an overestimation of the monetary damages actually incurred and, accordingly, remanded to the judge for sentencing. Associated Press.
Avenatti said he believes he will figure out his revised sentence in the next four to five months and hopes the time will be “significantly reduced.”
The 14-year sentence was in addition to the five years he was serving in New York for separate sentences in the Nike and Daniels cases. An appeals panel discussed in October whether the California sentence should run concurrently with Avenatti serving time on other charges.
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Fox News Digital has reached out to a Trump spokesperson for comment.
