Avenatti drops request to participate in Cohen case after warning to 'stop your publicity tour'

[Miles Archer]

Avenatti drops request to participate in Cohen case after warning to 'stop your publicity tour'

https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/30/politics/avenatti-cohen-publicity-tour/index.html

(CNN)Porn star Stormy Daniels' attorney, Michael Avenatti, withdrew his motion to participate in the court battle involving the FBI raid of President Donald Trump's attorney's hotel and office Wednesday after a federal judge warned him he would have to "stop your publicity tour."

Avenatti, who practices law in California, had requested to be admitted into the New York proceedings, but was met with fierce objection from the attorney for Michael Cohen, Trump's long-time lawyer, who cited Avenatti's frequent television appearances, public statements about Cohen's guilt and his release of Cohen's personal financial information.

In a nod to that, Judge Kimba Wood told Avenatti that for him to be admitted, "you would have to change your conduct" and "stop your publicity tour." Wood said she didn't mean that in a derogatory way but later said "this conduct is inimitable to giving Mr. Cohen eventually a fair trial."

Wood did not rule on whether to allow Avenatti to appear formally in court but made clear that his time speaking before her was limited. "Until you are admitted I don't expect you to stand here and be heard," the judge told him. About an hour after the hearing ended Avenatti withdrew his motion to appear without prejudice, meaning he could take it up later.

[oberliner]

1. He will not let anything stand in the way of his publicity tour

Everyone needs to remember that Avenatti has one and only one priority: making money.

Nothing wrong with that but let's not pretend otherwise.

[Miles Archer]

3. Icarus

Wings melted when he flew too close to the sun.

I posted a number of Avenatti's tweets here, and they got a positive response, but after a while, I started getting responses like "It seems like there's something else going on here."

And the something else, of course, was the rise of the publicity tour.

It's a shame, because unless he can re-direct his energy, he could become one more person who went up against Trump, lost, and gave Trump one more reason to say "I told you so."

Hope that doesn't happen.

[Kingofalldems]

7. I know the right wing really hates Avenatti.

They seem quite afraid of him.

[bettyellen]

8. He's fighting the publicity hound in chief on his own battleground and winning- the GOP is petrified

Because he’s free to do what he wants. Until Mueller can weigh in, it’s great to have him out there fighting Trump. Of course he gets trolled for it.

[NCTraveler]

2. Snake oil salesman will always have more of an impact when they are free to sell.

I would rather have him on the outside. His initial submission to the courts was a laughable joke. Many forgot about that. He then got assistance moving forward. What the guy is good at he is good at. Very good.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. I didn't understand what his basis was for wanting to get involved in Cohen's case anyhow

unless it was to get more publicity for the Stormy Daniels and maybe just to be a thorn in Cohen's side, which he was already. Otherwise, unless there's something I'm totally missing, which of Cohen's seized documents does Avenatti need, or think he needs, as evidence in the Daniels case? That is actually a pretty straightforward contract case; the only issue is whether the contract is enforceable. The contract doesn't stand or fall on where Cohen got the money.

[BumRushDaShow]

9. I think part of the problem is that he wasn't her original lawyer

Keith Davidson was, so I think he may be trying to get info that Davidson is supposedly not at liberty to discuss and there is apparently an issue regarding whether Davidson was in cahoots with Cohen when the deal was worked -

Lawyer who cut deals for Daniels and McDougal says the whole truth has not been told

By Scott Glover and Sara Sidner, CNN

Updated 1:20 PM ET, Fri April 6, 2018

<...>

Davidson said he consulted with an ethics attorney who disagreed with Cohen's assessment. As a result, he said he still feels ethically bound not to disclose details about his conversations with Daniels and McDougal, or provide information about his work on their behalf. But he defended himself against allegations leveled by his former clients that he didn't look out for their best interests. McDougal even accused him in court documents of colluding with Trump's associates while pretending to represent her. "I read each of the ladies' complaints and pleadings. ...The recitation of the facts that are contained within those pleadings I do not agree with, and I look forward to an opportunity in an appropriate forum to discuss them," Davidson said. But because legal ethics bar him from discussing their cases, "I feel like I'm fighting with one hand tied behind my back," he added.

Michael Avenatti, Daniels' current attorney, said: "Mr. Davidson should not be making any comment to the press relating to the matter, or a client that has terminated him, such as Ms. Clifford. With that said, obviously all of the facts have yet to be disclosed, as we have been saying for weeks now."

Davidson spoke broadly about his law practice, which he said was important context for understanding how he came to represent McDougal and Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford. And he also detailed several exchanges he had with Cohen both before and after the election. In one of the more revealing comments, Davidson acknowledged reaching out to Cohen during the final stretch of the 2016 presidential campaign to let him know that he had just negotiated a deal with a powerful media company and McDougal that effectively kept her allegations of an affair with Trump out of public view. He did so even though neither Cohen nor Trump were official parties to the case. He deemed the call "a professional courtesy."

He denied that there was anything improper about the call. A few weeks after that call, Davidson said, Cohen called him saying he was hearing some rumblings that Daniels was trying to resurface allegations that she'd had sex with Trump in 2006. Cohen asked Davidson, who he knew had represented Daniels years earlier, to see if he could "find out what's going on," Davidson said. Soon after, Davidson brokered a deal with Cohen in which Daniels was paid $130,000 to keep quiet about her alleged tryst with Trump.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/04/politics/stormy-daniels-karen-mcdougal-deals-keith-davidson-invs/index.html

[meadowlander]

10. I think his argument was that there was some shady dealing

between Michael Cohen and Keith Davidson, Daniels' original attorney. This is also what the other woman Karen McDougal was alleging (i.e. that their lawyer cut a bad deal for them because he was really in league with Michael Cohen).

So he did potentially have an interest in any emails uncovered between Michael Cohen and Keith Davidson that showed they were working together and against the interests of Stormy Daniels. I'm not a lawyer, but I assume that if her lawyers wasn't actually representing her interests that that would be further evidence that the contract couldn't be enforced.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

11. But apparently this information wasn't quite as important to him

as being able to talk about the case in the media, because that's the choice the judge gave him. Under the law and the rules of professional conduct for lawyers, if he appeared as an intervenor in the Cohen case in order to get these emails he could no longer go on TV and talk about Cohen's alleged crimes because those comments are potentially prejudicial. Apparently he didn't want to give up his TV gigs for a few emails that he could probably get eventually through normal discovery in the Daniels case - it was just going to take longer.

[meadowlander]

12. He probably already has it all anyway.

He's hinted on the Last Word that he has access to Keith Davidson's file from when he was representing her.

I'm sure he calculated that he can get more mileage out of his TV appearances, especially now that people are leaking things to him, than he could have gotten out of staying involved in the case.

[Kablooie]

5. I was wondering how he could talk about all this so publically

I guess he’s not getting away with it.

[manor321]

6. Good

Now he can speak his mind instead of being silenced by Kimba Wood, who was completely unfair to him.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

13. She was not only fair, she was following the law.

She has an obligation to protect the constitutional rights of a potential defendant, which means that a lawyer appearing in a case before her can't make public statements that might be prejudicial. If Avenatti were admitted pro hac so he could intervene in Cohen's case he would also have to abide by the NY Bar's rules of professional conduct, which also prohibit a lawyer representing anyone in a case from making any such statements.