Stormy Daniels' Lawyer Michael Avenatti Is Threatening to Sue the Daily Caller

By Prachi Gupta  |  May 15, 2018 | 3:18pm
Politics

Michael Avenatti, the lawyer who represents Stormy Daniels and looks like a hard-nosed federal agent in a made-for-TV movie, is threatening to sue conservative outlet the Daily Caller for libel.

Responding to an unflattering story about Avenatti’s “questionable history,” which the Daily Caller alleges was filled with “bankruptcy filings,” Avenatti on Monday sent a threatening email to Daily Caller reporter Peter Hasson, in which he wrote: “If you and your colleagues do not stop with the hit pieces that are full of lies and defamatory statements, I will have no choice but to sue each of you and your publication for defamation.” The Washington Post points out that Avenatti’s email is a toned-down version of an angry, intimidating email that Donald Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen sent to a journalist in 2015. It’s almost as if they are temperamentally….. similar.

Though Avenatti attempted to call his comments “off the record,” Hasson never agreed to those terms and instead published the email on Twitter:

The email reads:

Let me be clear. If you and your colleagues do not stop with the hit pieces that are full of lies and defamatory statements, I will have no choice but to sue each of you and your publication for defamation. During that process, we will expose your publication for what it truly is. We will also recover significant damages against each of you that participated personally. So if I were you, I would tell Mr. Trump to find someone else to fabricate things about me.
If you think I’m kidding, you really don’t know anything about me. This is the last warning.

“Just like there is nothing wrong with calling out unethical attorneys, there is nothing wrong with calling out unethical journalists,” Avenatti told the Post.

“When and if we file the defamation action, we will provide, in detail, a litany of the defamatory statements in the article, coupled with the unethical conduct carried out by the Daily Caller,” he added.

Avenatti declined to say what, exactly, was libelous about the article, which paints him as “an individual obsessed with fame and willing to use unethical methods to win a case” and recounts failed business ventures, including at least one bankruptcy filing.

So far, though, Avenatti is merely puffing his barrel-shaped chest at the publication. He did not specify whether he will, in fact, sue the Daily Caller.

 
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