The battle for the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh as Justice on the Supreme Court has resulted in a great tragedy. Michael Avenatti's appearances on television are likely due to be sharply cut back. Why? Because liberals in the mainstream media are now placing the blame for the failure of the Democrats to derail the Kavanaugh confirmation squarely at the feet of Avenatti.
One example was on MSNBC Live on Saturday as Kavanaugh was being confirmed. Charlie Savage of the New York Times claimed that Avenatti "did a huge favor to the Trump White House" by tossing wild charges into the mix.
CHARLIE SAVAGE: Remember Christine Blasey Ford was a member of the same Washington community. I think we can’t discount how much this conversation changed when Avenatti came in with the Swetnick allegations, the druggie gang rape stuff that seems to have been much less taken as credible.
CHRIS MATTHEWS: Do you think he gummed it up?
SAVAGE: If you listen to Susan Collins speech yesterday and if you listen to the rhetoric on the right, they seized upon this much less credible looking set of allegations to taint the original ones by association. This is the thing that hey, mothers your daughters — your sons I’m sorry will be hit by fraudulent allegations where suddenly they were drugging and gang raping everyone and everyone what is like what is that? He did a huge favor to the Trump White House.
Sniff! That lousy Avenatti gummed it up so the original Blasey Ford charges backed up by nobody were tainted by his wild gang rape charges that were seized upon by the eager MSM.
The Washington Post senior political reporter Aaron Blake made a similar point as Savage in his Friday column, "Did Michael Avenatti help doom the case against Brett Kavanaugh?"
With Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh having just secured the 50th and 51st votes to assure his confirmation, attention has turned to Avenatti’s role in the failed effort. After the media unearthed and vetted accusations by Kavanaugh’s first two accusers, Christine Blasey Ford and Deborah Ramirez, Avenatti decided to skip the middle man with a third.
After several days of making the cable TV rounds teasing his new client, he released a sworn affidavit from Julie Swetnick that not only included the most serious accusations to date — that Kavanaugh appeared to have participated in gang rapes — but also did so with the least corroboration.
Earth to Blake: Swetnick had as much corroboration as Blasey Ford meaning none.
By the end of the confirmation battle, the Swetnick allegation became a key GOP talking point — alleged proof positive that, while allegations such as Ford’s could perhaps be taken seriously, this was at least in part a political effort using frivolous and ridiculous charges. That a man with eyes for the 2020 Democratic nomination was behind them made that argument easier to make.
Senator Spartacus also has eyes for the 2020 Democrat nomination and his melodramatic antics were over allegations with as much corroboration as Swetnick's.
Finally Manu Raju on Sunday jumped on the case of the man whom CNN had as a guest this year many times more than anybody else in "Democrats say Avenatti undercut their case against Kavanaugh":
Senate Democrats believed they had Brett Kavanaugh on the ropes.
Christine Blasey Ford had just revealed her identity and was prepared to testify in public, detailing her allegations that Kavanaugh had tried to sexual assault her more than three decades ago. On top of that, a New Yorker article had just revealed that a second woman, Deborah Ramirez, was accusing Kavanaugh of exposing his genitals to her while they were college students.
Then came Michael Avenatti.
...A host of Democratic senators and senior aides told CNN that the allegations from Avenatti's client gave the GOP an opening to conflate -- and dismiss -- all the allegations in one broad brush.
"Well you know at some point there were a lot of folks coming forward making all sorts of accusations," said Sen. Gary Peters, a Michigan Democrat, when asked about the allegations raised by Avenatti and his client. "It turns it into a circus atmosphere and certainly that's not where we should be."
Asked if Avenatti was helpful, Peters said: "I think we should have focused on the serious allegations that certainly appeared very credible to me that would be our best course of action."
Privately, the assessment was far more scathing.
"Democrats and the country would have been better off if Mr. Avenatti spent his time on his Iowa vanity project rather than meddling in Supreme Court fights," a senior Senate Democratic aide fumed, referring to Avenatti toying with the idea of seeking the Democratic presidential nomination. "His involvement set us back, absolutely."
So will this MSM anger with Avenatti set back the frequency of his future interviews on TV? The good news is that the parody Avenatti TV commercial gives a clue as to the next step he can legally take to maintain the output of his cable guest appearances: sue for wrongful interview cancellation
