Disgraced Stormy Daniels’ attorney Michael Avenatti has been in contact with former President Trump’s legal defense team and is ready and willing to testify against his former client, he told The Post in an interview from jail.
“The defense has contacted me,” Avenatti told The Post in a phone call from Terminal Island, a minimum-security federal prison in Los Angeles where he is currently serving a 19-year sentence for extortion, tax evasion, fraud, embezzlement and other federal crimes.
“I’d be more than happy to testify, I don’t know that I will be called to testify, but I have been in touch with Trump’s defense for the better part of year,” Avenatti said.
The ex-litigator refused to offer any details about the specifics of his conversations with Team Trump.
A person close to the former president confirmed the ongoing discussions.
While Avenatti made his name as one of Trump’s most ferocious critics — and even publicly called for Trump’s indictment in 2018 — the defense attorney sang a different tune from the clink.
“There’s no question [the trial] is politically motivated because they’re concerned that he may be reelected,” Avenatti said. “If the defendant was anyone other than Donald Trump, this case would not have been brought at this time, and for the government to attempt to bring this case and convict him in an effort to prevent tens of millions of people from voting for him, I think it’s just flat out wrong, and atrocious.
“I’m really bothered by the fact that Trump, in my view, has been targeted. Four cases is just over the top and I think there’s a significant chance that this is going to all backfire and is going to propel him to the White House,” he added.
“Depending on what happens, this could constitute pouring jet fuel on his campaign.”
Once an obscure California litigator, Avenatti vaulted into public prominence in 2018 while representing Stormy Daniels, the porn star who alleged Trump had an affair with her in 2006.
While the former president has consistently denied the charge, the $130,000 payment to Daniels to allegedly buy her silence during the 2016 presidential election now lays at heart of the Manhattan criminal case against him.
At his height, the quotable attorney was such a regular presence on MSNBC that he frequently slept in their New York City headquarters.
Former CNN host Brian Stelter and Trump confidante Steve Bannon both suggested Avenatti would be a formidable presidential candidate.
A show with former Trump communications director Anthony Scaramucci was floated (but went nowhere).
But it all came crashing down.
In November 2018 he was booked on charges of domestic violence.
In 2020 he was convicted of trying to extort Nike for up to $25 million.
In June 2022 he was found guilty for stealing $300,000 in book advance money from Daniels.
That same month he also pled guilty to federal fraud and tax charges.
His combination of crimes have earned him nearly two decades behind bars.
Avenatti conceded he had made some “mistakes” and exercised “bad judgment” in the past — but insisted his sentence was overly draconian.
Of his former client, Avenatti was scathing — and warned New York City prosecutors that he expected Daniels to commit perjury should she be called as a witness.
“Stormy Daniels is going to say whatever she believes is going to assist Stormy Daniels and putting more money in her pocket,” Avenatti said. “If Stormy Daniels lips are moving, she’s lying for money.”
Avenatti said she would be a poor witness in the approaching trial, citing her past claims of speaking to dead people and her possession of a “haunted” doll named Susan.
“I don’t know how you can possibly put someone who makes those claims on the witness stand and use them as a star witness in a case against a former president United States who’s running for president. That is just absolutely ludicrous to me.”
Avenatti said if the election were held today, Trump would win.
The lawyer said he saw much of his own struggles in Trump’s current ordeal — adding they were both in the crosshairs of a weaponized justice.
“I think that we were both targeted by the justice system,” Avenatti said. “There’s a lot of people on the left that were very concerned about my potential rise within the Democratic Party and my potential rise in Democratic politics. And the fact that I was not someone that was easily controlled.”
Avenatti insisted he wasn’t fishing for clemency in a potential second Trump term — and his change of heart was not motivated by the former president’s famous susceptibility to flattery.
“I’m not saying any of this because I’m seeking a pardon,” Avenatti said.
And he claims he never would have penned his New York Times Op-Ed against Trump in 2018 had he known at the time that Daniels was a “serial liar.”
“I wish I would have never met Stormy Daniels. I should have left her where I found her.”
Reached by phone, Daniels called Avenatti a “lunatic” and a “scumbag.”
“I was about to say that I also wish I’d never met him but I’m actually glad because I’m the one that helped convict him so he couldn’t steal from even more unsuspecting clients,” Daniels said.
