Michael Avenatti today warned that President Trump‘s lawyer Rudy Giuliani should “buckle up” after Trump’s former attorney, Michael Cohen, accepted a plea deal.
Avenatti, the lawyer representing adult film actress Stormy Daniels, tweeted Tuesday afternoon that Trump and Giuliani had “completely misplayed” their response to Daniels’s defamation claims. His comment came after news that Cohen had accepted a plea deal on banking and tax fraud charges.
“The developments of today will permit us to have the stay lifted in the civil case & should also permit us to proceed with an expedited deposition of Trump under oath about what he knew, when he knew it, and what he did about it. We will disclose it all to the public,” he added.
Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, is suing Trump and Cohen for defamation over their denials of an alleged 2006 affair between her and Trump. The adult film star argues that Trump’s denial of the alleged affair portrays her as a liar and unfairly damages her reputation.
A 2016 payment to Daniels to stay quiet about the alleged affair in the weeks before the election became a focus of Robert Mueller‘s special counsel investigation this year, as investigators probed whether the payment constitutes an illegal campaign donation.