Michael Avenatti – who is incarcerated in a federal prison – tweets support for Trump’s free speech after gag order
Michael Avenatti on Tuesday expressed his support for former President Donald Trump’s First Amendment rights in a message posted on the currently incarcerated lawyer’s X account.
“We can’t be hypocrites when it comes to the 1st Amendment,” the disgraced attorney wrote.
“It is outrageous that [Michael] Cohen and [Stormy] Daniels can do countless TV interviews, post on social, & make $$ on bogus documentaries – all by talking shit about Trump – but he’s gagged and threatened with jail if he responds,” Avenatti added.
Avenatti was referencing Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan’s multiple orders against the presumptive Republican presidential nominee restricting his ability to verbally attack witnesses and family members of people involved in District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s hush money case against the former president.
Avenatti, who at one time represented the porn star at the center of the case and was a fixture on cable news programs, was sentenced to 14 years in prison in 2022 after being convicted of cheating numerous former clients out of millions of dollars and other financial crimes.
The 53-year-old attorney had previously been sentenced to five years behind bars for defrauding Daniels out of a book contract and attempting to extort footwear manufacturer Nike out of $25 million.
Avenatti is currently locked up at the Terminal Island Federal Correctional Institution in San Pedro, Calif., where inmates do not have access to the internet, but can use letters, phone calls and a “restricted version of email” to get messages to the outside world, according to the facility’s inmate orientation handbook.
Social media users appeared more bemused by Avenatti’s whereabouts when the tweet was posted rather than the content of his argument.
“While we have you — do you recommend this place for Donald?” George Conway, co-founder of the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump politcal action committee, tweeted, including screenshots of Avenatti’s Federal Bureu of Prisons profile.
“Wait … You’re allowed to tweet when behind bars?” one incredulous X user posted, echoing the thoughts of many.
“Look who wants a pardon,” Eric Columbus, a former Justice Department official and lawyer for the House Jan. 6 Select Committee, tweeted.
The post was the disgraced lawyer’s first since last December.
Avenatti’s release date is Aug. 20, 2035, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
