The Two Michaels

Everyone loves a convert.

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90
Michael Avenatti (left) and Michael Cohen. (Avenatti photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images. Cohen photo by Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)

The year is 2018. You’re at a psychic reading. In a trance, the psychic peers into the future and predicts that Donald Trump will be a criminal defendant in 2024.

“Eh, too easy,” you think.

Michael Cohen and Michael Avenatti will be involved in the trial, the psychic murmurs. But that’s also easy: Cohen was the then-president’s personal attorney and Avenatti was counsel to Stormy Daniels, a role he had parlayed into media ubiquity and Resistance stardom. Of course the two might feature in a prosecution of Trump.

Unimpressed, you rise to leave—and then the psychic speaks again. Cohen will be a witness for the prosecution, she whispers. And Avenatti will be a witness for Trump.

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  1. Lburrell1

    Please note MSNBC interviewed Michael Avanti on prime time giving him free rein to espouse his opinions.

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    Retired Prosecutor

    I guess I was lucky in my prosecutorial career, never having to call a convicted perjurer as a key witness.

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  3. Vaddeman

    'We’re not here to morally validate our readers...'

    A thank you for that.

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    Gbr0wn

    Good column today

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  5. BizChuck

    Simply brilliant analysis and superb writing.

    Thank you, Mr. Cattogio.

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  6. AD Tippet

    For Carlson, it is simple math. The subscription on politics game is hard (I have over ten subs including this one!) Let's say he needs, as a start, 200,000 subs to pony over $180.00 per year yielding a $36 million revenue stream. With this model he only matches what Fox paid him (he has to cover all his own costs/staff now). But will he get the 200,000 from liberals? From me? No. So he has to carve out a sect and give them what they need. Not just revisionism about the A Bomb or praise for Putin, but even stories of Roswell and Little Green Men.

    Also see Tulsi Gabbard, no conservative she, who is now a Fox darling.

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      Retired Prosecutor

      Very unconventional views, but still a looker. When I was younger I didn't talk a lot of politics to my dates. But enough about me . . . .

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  7. Jfan

    I wish Allahpundit would tell us about all the discussions at Salem during his years there. I really have no patience with implicit promises of confidentiality anymore.

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  8. Deleted Comment

    This comment has been deleted

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    John A Johnson

    One of the best indicators of Trump's character is who he chose to be his attorney. Not a good sign.

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      Retired Prosecutor

      Tell me more, John. Does this defense lawyer have a prior history? So far he seems better than Habba, but that's of course a very low bar.

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        John A Johnson

        I have absolutely no knowledge of them; my comment on Cohen is based on what has long been public. One would think a company of the size of Trump's would have used a White and Case quality firm, not this Cohen fellow.

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          Retired Prosecutor

          I'm sorry -- I thought you were referring to his current mouthpiece. I don't really consider Cohen to have ever been Trump's attorney, but rather his bagman, fixer, and cleaner.

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            John A Johnson

            Do you know the old story about why they started using lawyers rather than white mice in medical experiments?

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    Jean-Christophe Jouffrey

    Dear Nick Catoggio,

    Why are most of the "witnesses" involved in this trial morally corrupt?

    Because the former or current "associates" (both positively and negatively) of a thoroughly corrupt person are seldom "innocents".

    See from this excerpt from the NYT regarding Tuesday's session of the trial, as to Trump compliance with his gag order: "When Mr. Trump’s lead lawyer, Todd Blanche, claimed that the former president was trying to comply with the order, Justice Merchan signaled that he found that preposterous, replying with words that no lawyer wants to hear: “You’re losing all credibility with the court.”"

    Even the lawyers of a deeply corrupt man lose credibility: see Mafia lawyer Roy Cohn, the early mentor of... Trump.

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    1. EireExpat

      Dear J-CJ you are on fire with 5 uninterrupted comments.

      Trump shared the NYC tabloids in the 1980s with his business idol John Gotti and Gotti’s trials were full of convicted criminals testifying about crimes, jailhouse conversions of capos- the defence strategy was obvious - who are ya gonna believe me or these lying right hand men I trusted for decades…

      Since the Trump phenomenon is a made for reality TV movie. I await Trumps lawyer screaming a la Al Pacino "My client The honourable (Donald J Trump) should go to jail…You're out of order! You're out of order! The whole trial is out of order! They're out of order!"

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        Stephanie

        If only it were being televised.

        It would show just how puny Trump looks sitting at the defense table. We already know that he didn’t succeed in getting any more than one follower to show up and protest yesterday.

        The whole effect is to make him look like anything but a strongman.

        And we’d be able to know for certain whether he really was breaking wind during voir dire proceedings. Right now he has deniability.

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