Celebrity attorney Michael Avenatti was found guilty Friday on three counts of attempting to extort $25 million from Nike.
Avenatti rose to prominence years ago when he worked as the attorney for Stormy Daniels, a porn star who sued President Donald Trump over an alleged affair. Left-wing media outlets celebrated Avenatti and pumped him up for a potential presidential run against Trump in 2020. With Avenatti’s conviction in New York, it’s time to look back at all the media outlets who bought the attorney’s claims over the years.
The Washington Free Beacon put together a supercut of various media personalities fawning over Avenatti. The video opens with Bill Maher calling Avenatti “Trump’s worst nightmare” to roaring applause. Later, “The View” host Joy Behar tells Avenatti he’s “out saving the country.” Another CNN contributor called him the “savior of the republic,” while Maher is again shown calling the disgraced attorney “a folk hero.”
The video has an entire segment showing pundits giddy over the possibility that Avenatti might “take down Donald Trump,” as Maher put it. He’s called a “beast.” MSBNC host Lawrence O’Donnell says Trump “is afraid to mention [Avenatti’s] name” and is “terrified” of him. Late night host Stephen Colbert called him the “existential threat to the Trump presidency.”
WATCH:
Womp Womppic.twitter.com/qrQeBFH3ZI
— Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) February 14, 2020
As The Daily Wire reported Friday, Avenatti faces up to 42 years in prison for attempting to extort Nike. While he was convicted in New York, the disgraced attorney still faces charges of stealing money from clients in Los Angeles, California. He has been accused of stealing Stormy Daniels’ book advance and millions from a mentally ill paraplegic man whom Avenatti represented. The man, Geoffrey Ernest Johnson, won a $4 million settlement, which was wired to Avenatti, who then kept it from Johnson for years. If Avenatti is also convicted in California, he would face up to 335 years in prison for his crimes.
In addition to his legal troubles in New York and California, Avenatti was also referred for criminal investigation to the Department of Justice after he represented a woman, Julie Swetnick, who made obviously false allegations against then-Supreme Court Justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
Kavanaugh had been accused by Christine Blasey Ford of allegedly groping her when the two were in high school. Though there were serious questions with Ford’s claims and the motivation behind them, Democrats and their media counterparts presented her accusations as “credible” and she was even allowed to testify before the senate. While the media circus surrounding Kavanaugh was taking place, NBC hosted an interview with Swetnick, who was the third woman to claim Kavanaugh sexually assaulted women. Swetnick claimed in a sworn affidavit that Kavanaugh helped spike punch and lead gang rape parties while he was a high school student. The ludicrous claims didn’t stop NBC from interviewing her, where she walked back her most salacious claims. It later turned out NBC was well aware of the issues with her claims, but put her on the air anyway as part of its vendetta against Trump and Republicans.