Disgraced former Stormy Daniels lawyer says he would now testify for Trump

Michael Avenatti, the disgraced former lawyer for Stormy Daniels, has said that he is in touch with Donald Trump’s legal defence team and is willing to testify on behalf of the former president at his hush money trial.

“The defence has contacted me,” Avenatti told The New York Post from prison.

“I’d be more than happy to testify, I don’t know that I will be called to testify, but I have been in touch with Trump’s defence for the better part of a year.”

Avenatti is currently serving a 19-year sentence for extortion, tax evasion, fraud, embezzlement and other federal crimes at Terminal Island, a minimum-security federal prison in Los Angeles.

He did not provide any details about his conversations with the Trump defence team.

The Stormy Daniels scandal catapulted Avenatti into the public eye in 2018 when he represented the adult film star, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford.

Daniels alleged an affair with Mr Trump in 2006 — lurid details of which have since emerged — and while the former president has consistently denied the affair, a payment of $130,000 to her ahead of the 2016 presidential election is now at the centre of his current criminal trial in New York.

Once an enthusiastic critic of Mr Trump, then the president — even penning a New York Times op-ed in 2018 calling for his indictment — Avenatti has since switched to backing him in his legal quagmire and sees similarities in their current predicaments.

“There’s no question [the trial] is politically motivated because they’re concerned that he may be reelected,” Avenatti told the Post.

“If the defendant was anyone other than Donald Trump, this case would not have been brought at this time, and for the government to attempt to bring this case and convict him in an