Michael Avenatti took to his Twitter account on Saturday to call for an indictment against President Donald Trump. Avenatti, the embattled attorney for adult film actress Stormy Daniels, also declared that it was time for the Supreme Court to intervene on the issue and that the US constitution does not protect the president from an indictment.
.@realDonaldTrump should be indicted for committing the two felonies designed to get him elected. Now,” Avenatti wrote. “No court has ever ruled that the POTUS cannot be indicted and there is nothing in the constitution that states as much. It is time for the SCOTUS to decide the issue.”
On Twitter, the responses to Avenatti’s tweet were mixed. Some agreed with it and echoed his call for a Trump indictment while others brought up the attorney’s legal issues.
“Hey Avenatti your one to talk about crime especially when it comes to your wife,” Twitter user John Coffey wrote.
This last comment is in reference to Avenatti’s arrest on a felony domestic violence report last month. It turns out the alleged victim was not his estranged wife as originally some originally thought. The report shared that the alleged victim’s face was “swollen and bruised.”
According to TMZ sources, the alleged victim’s face was “swollen and bruised,” and she screamed into a phone, “I can’t believe you did this to me. I’m going to get a restraining order against you.”
Avenatti’s bail was set at $50,000 and he was released on the same day that he was arrested. The attorney who has previously declared his presidential ambitions denied the allegations. Days after the arrest, the Los Angeles District Attorneys Office announced that he would not be charged with a felony, CBC reports.
“I am completely innocent. I have absolute faith in the system that I will be fully exonerated,” Avenatti told the Associated Press , as reported by CBC. “This whole thing is bogus.”
The Case for Indicting the President. https://t.co/n9j2cl3ZdY pic.twitter.com/SqBvclBo13
— Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) December 8, 2018
As the Hill notes, Avenatti’s call for an indictment against the president follows a filing by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York which states that Trump directed his former lawyer Michael Cohen to make payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal. Both women claim that they had extra-marital affairs with the president, a claim that Trump has repeatedly said is untrue. The payment to Stormy Daniels came from Cohen’s account but prosecutors say that he lied about the money’s true purpose.
Avenatti is fighting to render a non-disclosure agreement she signed, allegedly at the behest of Cohen and Trump, null and void. Daniels also sued Trump for defamation.
After Avenatti’s arrest, she seemed to have a public spat with him and declared that she never agreed to move forward on that defamation suit. Daniels has since confirmed that she will continue to be his client and that they had sorted out their issues, the Hill reports.
