Attorney Michael Avenatti would welcome civil lawsuits from President Donald Trump and his former fixer Michael Cohen, he said Friday, following news that some bank records he used to establish an infamous Trump payoff to a porn star were stolen.
'I pray they sue me,' he told DailyMail.com via a text message from Chicago.
'Maybe we can then get to the truth about their criminal enterprise and conduct.'
Avenatti said Thursday on Twitter that he's not concerned about criminal liability from receiving and using Cohen's bank records, which San Francisco federal prosecutors say an Internal Revenue Service analyst pilfered and leaked to him.
The Bank Secrecy Act, he wrote in a tweet, does not apply to him in this case since he is neither abank nor a government official.
Neither the president nor Cohen has indicated a desire to take Avenatti to court.
But Friday's comments are his first on the prospect of civil lawsuits tied to the fast-unfolding saga of John C. Fry, who is charged with unlawful disclosure of Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs).
I DARE YOU: Michael Avenatti, famous for representing porn actress Stormy Daniels, told DailyMail.com on Friday that he would love for President Donald Trump and his disgraced former fixer Michael Cohen to sue him for releasing bank records that he got from an IRS thief
Federal prosecutors in San Francisco have charged Internal Revenue Service analyst John C. Fry with leaking bank records belonging to Cohen (center); the records documented a payoff to Avenatti client Stormy Daniels – money he hid from the IRS and lied to banks in order to get
The Cohen payoffs were meant to silence Daniels and a former Playboy model who both claimed to have had affairs with the then-married future president more than a decade ago
Banks files SARs with the IRS when they identify questionable transactions.
Fry allegedly turned over the stolen documents to Avenatti, and confirmed confidential banking information in the SARs to a reporter for The New Yorker, who is not named in the charging document but appears to have been Ronan Farrow.
Information about the bank transactions that were the subject of the SARs became public in May when Avenatti published a memo outlining them.
'Neither I nor R. Farrow did anything wrong or illegal with the financial info relating to Cohen’s crimes,' Avenatti tweetde Thursday, noting that 'the courts have found that the [Bank Secrecy Act] does not apply.'
'And if we did (we didn’t), then every reporter in America would be jailed and unable to do their job.'
Suing Avenatti would open a plaintiff to the three-ring circus of legal discovery, a pre-trial process in which opposing parties get access to documents and other materials that could impact a case.
What begins as a focused effort, however, can sometimes become a fishing expedition. Legal experts have said President Donald Trump would find his life upended and be forced to disclose tightly held documents related to his financial history if he should be embroiled in a lawsuit whose central thrust is money.
Avenatti is a lawyer for pornographic actress Stormy Daniels, who has said she had an affair with Trump more than a decade ago.
Cohen, who is due to
