Republican Party Jumps Into Michael Avenatti Case Demanding Arrest Records, Jacob Wohl Claims No Link To Bust
After Michael Avenatti, the 47-year-old California-based lawyer who emerged this year as an outspoken foe of Donald Trump, was arrested Wednesday and booked on domestic violence charge, the 20-year-old Trump supporter and Twitter “troll” Jacob Wohl — who just two weeks ago was part of an attempt to falsely accuse Special Counsel Robert Mueller of sexual assault — appeared to claim credit for engineering Avenatti’s arrest, the Inquisitr reported yesterday.
But even as Avenatti lashed out at Wohl on his own Twitter feed, saying that he would be “coming for” the Trump mega-fan, and Wohl then denied a link to Avenatti’s arrest, the Republican Party suddenly took an interest in the case, filing formal requests for all information related to Avenatti’s arrest.
Avenatti quickly responded to the Republican requests, saying via Twitter, “As if there was a doubt politics was involved, there can now be none.”
As first reported by the right-wing news site Breitbart — a site directly connected to Trump through its former chief executive Steve Bannon, who also served as chairman of Trump’s 2016 campaign and as a top adviser in the Trump White House, as Washington Post records — The RNC on Thursday filed two separate requests for information on Avenatti’s bust, each citing the California Public Records Act.
The requests were signed by Scott Parker, whose LinkedIn page lists his job as “Director of Investigations at Republican National Committee,” though on the requests — one to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, the other to the L.A. Police Department — Parker gives his title as “Deputy Research Director.”
Mike Avenatti blames Jacob Wohl for his domestic violence arrest https://t.co/0j3q5vHkkS pic.twitter.com/nl57RLh7EI
— New York Post (@nypost) November 15, 2018
The RNC wants not only the police reports of Avenetti’s arrest, but also “felony DV reports, intake reports, toxicology reports, statements by witnesses, statements by the perpetrator, correspondence, and any other information related to the arrest, booking, or charging of Michael Avenatti.” The RNC also wants any video or audio relating to the arrest, including actual video, if it exists, of LAPD detectives taking the lawyer into custody. The requests do not say how the RNC plans to use the information, but notes that Avenatti is a potential Democratic presidential candidate for the 2020 election.
Wohl on Twitter accused Avenatti of “telling reporters that the woman he allegedly beat is a ‘plant’… ‘sent by Jacob Wohl,'” but he cited no source for those quotes and Avenatti does not appear to have made such statements on the public record. In a separate Twitter message, Wohl referred to Avenatti as a “pedo,” though no such allegations have been made against the attorney. Wohl repeated the claim in a later Twitter post, directed at Avenatti, saying, “You posted bail and will have your day in court against PEDO and domestic violence charges. Good luck, pervert.”
Avenatti himself took to Twitter to condemn “inaccurate reporting” about the arrest, saying that, “for example, I have NOT been charged with anything, let alone a felony.” He added that “numerous other ‘facts’ being reported are completely bogus.”
Avenatti did not specify which “facts” he meant, but the gossip site TMZ which broke the story of Avenatti’s arrest had incorrectly reported that the alleged victim in the incident was Avenatti’s estranged wife, Lisa Storie. But Storie issued a statement saying that she was not the victim, and TMZ quickly “updated” its story.
