LOS ANGELES (CN) – The attorney for President Donald Trump’s longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen upped the ante Monday on demands that porn star Stormy Daniels’ attorney should be barred from speaking to news media so Cohen gets a fair trial in pending cases.
Manhattan Beach, California-based Brent Blakely of Blakely Law Group said in a reply brief filed in Los Angeles federal court that Michael Avenatti’s statements on news programs threaten the “fairness, and indeed the integrity, of the judicial process.”
Cohen – a former executive vice president at the Trump Organization – says Avenatti, whose client Daniels claims she had an affair with Trump, is depriving him of the right to a fair trial by participating in television news interviews.
Avenatti is driven by a “seemingly unquenchable thirst for publicity” where “he routinely denigrates” Cohen with claims of criminal conduct, Cohen has said in court papers.
“Avenatti has and continues to engage in a willful, open, and consistent strategy to litigate in the court of public opinion,” Blakely said in the court filing Monday. “Appearing on television over 170 times and issuing over 500 tweets, during which [Avenatti] routinely accuses Cohen of various criminal acts, being a moron, etc., and comments on anticipated evidence.”
In order to “ensure that justice is administered properly,” Blakely wrote, Avenatti should be banned from speaking to the press about the case and releasing information to the public.
On Twitter moments after Cohen's brief was filed, Avenatti criticized Cohen for claiming to be “concerned” about news media while agreeing to be interviewed Monday on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
“BTW, if Michael Cohen and his attorney Brent Blakely are so concerned about media attention that they are seeking to keep me from speaking the truth to the press via a gag order, then why did Cohen give an interview to @GMA?!?! They like press, just not the truth. #Basta,” Avenatti tweeted.
In an off-camera interview with ABC, Cohen said he is willing to work with special counsel Robert Mueller and federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, even if that leaves Trump exposed to legal danger.
“My wife, my daughter and my son have my first loyalty and always will. I put family and country first,” Cohen told ABC.
Cohen is currently under criminal investigation in federal court in New York, after his office and hotel room were raided by federal agents seeking documents related to the payment to Daniels.
Avenatti said Cohen is “trying to play both sides” with his ABC interview by appeasing Trump and trying to portray himself as a good person.
“Mr. Cohen is trying to get Trump to pay his legal bills & is playing games. If he has info & truly loves this country then he needs to come forward NOW,” Avenatti tweeted. “There is nothing stopping him. If not, it will be obvious he lied to the public in an effort to paint himself as a good guy.”
Blakely did not respond to a request for comment by press time.
Monday’s filing is a reply to Daniels’ June 25 opposition of Cohen’s ex parte request for a restraining order against Avenatti. In it, Daniels, born Stephanie Clifford, said any gag order issued in the case over hush money paid to Daniels must apply to all parties.