Judge indicates reluctance to issue gag order for Avenatti: report

A district court judge appeared unlikely to grant a request from lawyers representing Michael Cohen to impose a gag order on Michael Avenatti, the attorney representing Stormy Daniels, ABC News reported Friday.

Cohen’s attorney, Brent Blakely, accused Avenatti of engaging in a public smear campaign against his client in the weeks preceding the trial including more than 170 appearances on various news shows.

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In a court filing, Blakely referred to Avenatti as a “small-town carnival magician” using the First Amendment as a bag of tricks, ABC reported.

The judge, U.S. District Court Judge S. James Otero, appeared skeptical of Blakely’s arguments, ABC reported, and said he worried that imposing such a rule “chills First Amendment rights going forward — and that is the most sacred of rights.”

“The Constitution is the highest right in the land, and is neither a trick or an illusion,” Otero added, according to ABC.

Avenatti told reporters outside the courthouse that he planned to continue giving interviews on the case, which he said had generated “significant interest” from the public, unless a judge ordered him to do otherwise.

“I think there’s a reason why the press and the media continue to invite us to come on television and talk about this case,” Avenatti said, according to ABC. “And that is because there is significant interest and there should be. Because this is about a cover up at the highest levels of our government, which is always an incredibly important thing to the United States.”

Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, claims to have engaged in an affair with President Trump in 2006 and is suing both Cohen and the president for allegedly damaging her reputation by denying the affair took place.

A $130,000 payment made to Daniels in the weeks before the 2016 presidential election by Cohen that was reimbursed by Trump is being looked at by investigators as a possible campaign finance law violation.