The King of Not Getting the Message

What on Earth is going on with Michael Avenatti?

Sometimes a nasty, rotten, cruel, dishonest person gets what he seems to deserve, and it seems so harsh, you can’t help feeling sorry for him. On the other hand, sometimes such a person’s high-handed, remorseless response to justice makes you forget about pity. You get so caught up, marveling at the spectacle, that you don’t think much about his suffering.

Avenatti is a marvel. Watching his post-conviction antics reminds me how strangely impressive a sociopath can be. Some people can perform feats of egotism, ingratitude, and blatant dishonesty that are just as impressive as the athletic feats of Jim Thorpe or the musical feats of Wolfgang Mozart.

I guess I should say I don’t know whether he’s a sociopath. Who knows? Maybe one day he’ll decide to amuse himself in prison, suing random people who have commented on his escapades. In my OPINION, he COULD be a sociopath. That’s better.

Avenatti was convicted of extortion because he threatened to expose misdeeds (alleged, alleged, go away lawyers) committed by the Nike corporation. At his sentencing, he did exactly what you would expect a contrite man with a guilty conscience…or a smart sociopath…to do. He cried and blamed himself. He said he would never practice law again, apparently thinking this would make people feel sorry for him instead of causing them to gasp with relief. Sociopaths tend to be tone-deaf when it comes to empathy, and it would make sense for one to try to get pity by claiming a forced job change was a punishment somehow on a par with prison time.

Anyway, at his sentencing, he groveled hard. Then last year, he was interviewed, and he was a different person. Angry, defensive Avenatti was back! Politico says he told them this: “Of course I made mistakes — you don’t end up in this situation without making mistakes. Whether those mistakes should put me where I am now is a different story.”

This sounds a lot different from what he told the judge at his sentencing. He told the judge his children should be ashamed of him because, “then their moral compass is where it should be.”

When he spoke to Politico, he was mad about the way he had been treated by the justice system. He pushed the argument that he was tried and convicted because he was an enemy of Donald Trump. He thought he got singled out. He was angry his partner in the Nike affair, Mark Geragos, wasn’t charged with anything. He claimed he went to a particularly nasty prison because Trump hated him. I think a contrite person would say, “I committed a pretty obvious tort, which is also a felony, while employed as an officer of the court. I would not be an ex-lawyer and convicted felon had I not chosen to do this.”

Complaining about his pain, he said:

If I start thinking about the relationships I had that I no longer have, the opportunities I had that I no longer have, the freedom I had that I no longer have, the wealth and things I used to have that I no longer have, the notoriety and the adoration I used to have that I no longer have — I mean, it’ll destroy me. I have to push it out of my mind, because it’s been such a gargantuan fall.

Sometimes, when you try to deceive, you make the truth more obvious. Look at all the things he wishes he still had. They’re all Avenatti-centered. The things that hurt most, apparently, are the superficial losses. Opportunities. Money. Admiration!

What kind of person grieves over losing the admiration of the public? What kind of person takes great pleasure in that? It’s the essence of narcissism. It’s impossible to be a person of quality and be highly motivated by the admiration of the public.

A good person cares about fairness. A good person cares about minimizing the unnecessary suffering of other creatures. A good person cares about remedying his own corruption. And where are his daughters in his list of regrets? What about the harm he did them?

God has said, “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.” If Avenatti weren’t extremely shallow and arrogant, losing the approval of millions of nameless people wouldn’t mean much to him. The fall wouldn’t be gargantuan, because he wouldn’t have lifted himself up that high.

Now he’s up against Stormy Daniels, the disgusting, unattractive woman the president slept with. He is accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from her, and he has cross-examined her.

He was given public defenders, which says something about his financial state, but he fired them. Ordinarily, it’s a very bad idea to represent yourself. It’s almost certainly a bad idea when you’re such a poor attorney you can’t tell when you’re committing extortion. On the other hand, public defenders are not known for their skills. I don’t know whether he will do a better job than they would have. Anyway, he is examining witnesses in court.

I read a little bit of their in-court exchange, and it’s pretty off-putting. There is no one to root for here. He seems to be focusing on her reputation instead of the law, trying to make her look sleazy, crazy, and dishonest. He got her to say she believed her doll could play the piano and that a “dark entity” made her boyfriend choke her and break her collarbone. He exposed her involvement in the occult. He also asked her if it was true that she had said watching him work was like seeing Michelangelo paint the Sistine Chapel. Her response: “Yes, that’s what you told me to say.”

Wow. These are people I would not want to know. It is distressing that President Trump would go for someone like that. She’s not even good-looking. He can’t even give that as an excuse. Sofia Vergara, I would understand. A young Cindy Crawford. Halle Berry. Someone a wealthy man with bad habits could not resist physically. I can see how that could happen. But Stormy Daniels couldn’t win a beauty contest in a holding cell.

Maybe she looked a lot better in 2006 when she and Trump are said to have gotten together. Women of her sort age fast.

What kind of person tells another person to say watching him work is like watching Michelangelo? I believe he told her to do it, because it’s such a stupid, offensive, ludicrous, self-worshiping thing to say. I can’t believe it would naturally occur to any client to say something like that. It sounds like the product of drug abuse or mental illness.

What is “watching him work,” anyway? Clients don’t watch lawyers work. They don’t sit in our offices, clapping every time we do a mouse click or type a word! How would a client know whether a lawyer was doing a good job? I guess she could watch him in court, but he never tried a case for her.

It’s gross, reading about two base people clawing at each other. I don’t want to be part of the same species they belong to. If I met intelligent aliens, and the only two other people they knew of were Michael Avenatti and Stormy Daniels, I would be embarrassed to speak to them.

I don’t know this guy, but my guess is that he is just about completely evil. I think he is incapable of remorse and couldn’t make himself feel it if he did his best. I think there are parts of his character that are simply missing. I don’t think prison will do anything for him but make him more resentful.

He reminds me of Satan, who betrayed the most innocent, loving, altruistic, patient, generous being there is and then, when he was accused, reacted as though God had wronged him. Truly evil people project. To sociopaths, just punishment looks like an unprovoked attack. It looks like the kind of thing they do.

When my sister was young, my dad gave up on corporal punishment. He found that it made her angry. She resented it. She thought he was just a bigger person picking on her because he was stronger. He decided to try a different approach. She acted up, and he told her that if she didn’t behave, he would be mad at her. She said, “Well, I’ll be mad at YOU.”

I think Avenatti is the same kind of person. He can’t imagine what it’s like to have a conscience or to care about anyone but himself, and I, bad as I am, can’t imagine what it’s like to be like him.

I think he has no chance at all of beating the Daniels case. He must be portraying her as a repulsive whore in hopes the finder of fact, having concluded he stole from her, will be glad he hurt her. Just guessing.

I think he’ll practice law again, in under 15 years. I know a felon who robbed clients, went to prison in Kentucky, and got his license back later. It can be done. I think Avenatti will be on the street by 2030, and then he’ll start campaigning to be reinstated wherever the bar association is most lenient.

Avenatti’s story is scary. It reminds me that it is possible to be beyond redemption, and unlike Avenatti, I know hell is real. If punishment has no effect on you, hell is probably in your future.

I have prayed for him before, and I will pray for him and Daniels tonight. I think I’ll throw Michael Cohen in for good measure.

Whatever my problems are, they could be a lot worse. I could be a man who can’t be helped.