"Part of me feels sorry" for Michael Cohen – Stormy Daniels' lawyer @MichaelAvenatti
"I think when push comes to shove he's going to fold like a cheap deck of cards" pic.twitter.com/gBuXMHszJr
— TheBeat w/Ari Melber (@TheBeatWithAri) April 9, 2018
Stormy Daniels’s lawyer predicted President Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, would “fold like a cheap deck of cards” after the FBI raided Cohen’s office and home on Monday.
Michael Avenatti said during an interview on MSNBC that part of him “feels sorry” for Cohen, who made a $130,000 payment to Daniels weeks before the presidential election.
“Well, part of me does just because of the seriousness of this matter,” Avenatti said.
“This guy, I think, has been put in a position where he is going to be — he is going to be expected to be the fall guy, the scapegoat. I don’t think he is going to hold up,” he said.
{mosads}He added that anyone who has to repeatedly tell you how “tough” he is, isn’t that tough.
“I think when push comes to shove, he is going to fold like a cheap deck of cards,” Avenatti said. “I really do. With that said, I don’t, I’m not applauding or high-fiving anybody’s offices being raided by the FBI. It’s a very, very serious matter. And I think that this is the first significant domino to fall.”
His comments come after the FBI raided the office of Cohen and seized emails, tax documents and records related to his payment to Daniels, an adult film star whose real name is Stephanie Clifford.
The New York Times reported that Daniels is just one of “many topics” being looked at by the FBI, and The Washington Post said Cohen is under investigation for possible bank fraud and campaign finance violations.
Other documents seized by the FBI include business records and communications between Cohen and Trump, but the raid does not appear to be directly connected to Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 election, according to the Times.
Trump on Monday ripped the FBI for raiding Cohen’s office, calling it a “disgrace” and a “pure and simple witch hunt.”