He sure conned a lot of media people, including Melber and O'Donnell, who couldn't get enough of him when he was representing Stormy Daniels. He always had a sleazy vibe to me, and he showed his true colors when he tried to get admitted pro hac vice in NY in connection with Michael Cohen's case. The judge told him he could either appear in the case or stop going on TV to talk about it - and he chose not to appear rather than give up his TV appearances, even though the reason he wanted to get involved was to protect his client's private information from discovery by federal investigators. In other words, he put his own interests ahead of his client's. That did it for me.
Not long afterward, despite evident and ongoing sleaze, he floated the possibility of running for president, and plenty of people - even on DU - ate that up. I recall getting some grief here for pointing out that representing a porn actress in a case against Trump wasn't a qualification for the presidency, and that Avenatti was nothing more than a high-rolling ambulance chaser - it was pretty obvious by then that the Daniels case and the corresponding publicity was part of his plan for that run. He deserves what he's getting from the very legal system he used to rip off a lot of people.
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