Stormy Daniels’s attorney Michael Avenatti on Tuesday mocked President Trump over his promotion of the “birther” conspiracy theory, which held that former President Obama was not a U.S. citizen because he was born elsewhere.
Avenatti said in a tweet Tuesday that when he was 15 he wanted to get a job at the nearby McDonald’s, but needed to be 16 to do so.
“So I doctored my birth certificate by changing the year of birth. I know it is only a matter of time before Trump discovers my ‘birther issue,’ so I thought I should come clean now,” Avenatti tweeted.
Avenatti recounted the story for The Hill, saying he had altered his birth certificate to read “’70” instead of “’71” but couldn’t remember how he made the change.
{mosads}He said he had lied to his mother about McDonald’s changing the age requirement for the job, but that he admitted to lying when his father later confronted him about it.
Avenatti said he thought his father would tell him to quit the job, but instead told him to be prepared to work hard and to continue doing so for the rest of his life.
“To be clear, I did not change the place of birth,” Avenatti said of the birth certificate.
Avenatti, who is representing Daniels, an adult-film star whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, in her lawsuits against the president, told The Hill last month that he’s given “serious thought” to running for president in 2020, and that Democrats need “a street fighter … someone that can give as good as they take.”
Daniels is suing Trump over a nondisclosure agreement about their alleged affair, claiming that the deal is void because the president did not sign the document. She is also suing him for defamation for denying the relationship.
Trump was at the forefront of promoting the so-called birther conspiracy theory, claiming that Obama’s Hawaii birth certificate may not be legitimate.
Trump said at a campaign event in September 2016 that Obama was born in the U.S.
But The New York Times reported last year that Trump still privately questions the authenticity of Obama’s birth certificate.