"The dramatic decision to call Ms. Daniels to the stand would carry both possible benefits and definite risks for prosecutors...."

"Her presence would let Mr. Trump’s defense lawyers attack Ms. Daniels as an extortionist.... Ms. Daniels could also offer context about the environment in which she sold her story of their 2006 encounter, which Mr. Trump denies. She was shopping the story as Mr. Trump’s campaign was reeling in 2016 from the disclosure of a recording on the set of Access Hollywood in which he bragged of groping women. Michael Bachner, a New York City defense lawyer not involved in the case, said that if prosecutors did not call Ms. Daniels to testify, 'it would just be a glaring hole' that the defense would question.... Mr. Trump’s lawyers contend that he did not know that the checks he signed for Mr. Cohen were not for legal fees, and that Mr. Cohen and Mr. Trump’s employees were responsible for any false records. They would be likely to portray Ms. Daniels as someone whose only real connection to Mr. Trump was wanting to be a possible contestant on his reality show...."

From "Stormy Daniels, Once Paid to Keep Quiet, Could Testify Against Trump/Ms. Daniels could take the stand this week, allowing jurors to see and hear from the person at the center of the criminal case against the former president" (NYT).

I would think the prosecutors want to avoid calling her:

"I wouldn’t trust her farther than I can spit. She’ll say whatever..."

"... she’ll say something to you, and something else to you, in the same day — if she thinks it’s going to help her, whether it be money, whether it be fame or power."

Said Ellen Doughty, about Stormy Daniels, quoted in "The horse wars of Stormy Daniels/As she tangles with a former president, the adult-film actress also plays a starring role in a drama that has rocked the world of competitive English riding" (WaPo)(long article, free access link).

Before Stormy Daniels came forward to attack Donald Trump, she attacked Ellen Doughty. Doughty is suing Daniels for defamation after Daniels accused Doughty, a horse trainer, of mistreating horses.

"Since Michael Avenatti has been sentenced to 14 more years in jail...."

Since Michael Avenatti has been sentenced to 14 more years in jail, I am once again obligated to remind the internet of the time Ana Navarro compared him to the Holy Spirit.
pic.twitter.com/y63JoXlW5Y

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) December 5, 2022

He was once God on Earth, and now.... But look how happy he made Jake Tapper:

Look how happy Jake Tapper looked while talking about Michael Avenatti running for president. pic.twitter.com/WmjLnq4wKi

— 🇺🇸 PapaCap 🇺🇸 (@bsmitch007) June 2, 2022

"Porn star Stormy Daniels loses appeal in Trump case, owes former president almost $300,000."

 CNBC reports. 

In its decision Friday, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit said it had no jurisdiction over Daniels’ appeal of the attorneys’ fees issue because she failed to file a notice of appeal within a 30-day deadline of a federal judge granting the fees to Trump....

The amount Daniels owes Trump in the case is about the same amount she was swindled out of by Michael Avenatti, her former lawyer....

Trump commented: "The lawsuit was a purely political stunt that never should have started... Now all I have to do is wait for all of the money she owes me."

It's hard to remember what this lawsuit was about, isn't it? 

Daniels sued Trump when he was president in 2018, seeking to void the nondisclosure agreement with Cohen. While Trump later agreed not to enforce the agreement, a judge in 2020 ordered him to pay Daniels more than $44,000 for her legal fees in that case.

Later in 2018, Daniels sued Trump again, claiming he defamed her when, in a Twitter post, he scoffed at a police sketch artist drawing of a man who Daniels said had threatened her in 2011 over her allegation of having had sex with Trump.

Trump called the sketch a “con job” about a “nonexistent man.”A federal judge dismissed that lawsuit later in 2018, saying Trump’s statements were protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution.

I wanted to see that police artist drawing again. I'd forgotten. I'll just link to my Google search because I see the drawing, signed "Lois," presumably the police artist, is emblazoned with "© Michael Avenatti, Esq."... and he's litigious. But he's not an "esquire" anymore. And he's in prison.

Despite the clear image of the face — which is so generically good-looking it's funny — the height is given as 5'9" to 6'. Who doesn't know the difference between a 5'9" guy and a 6' guy? I guess if you think he's 5'10 or 5'11" the police say 5'9" to 6'.

"When a masked Palin walked past me into the courtroom this morning, she was clad in her trademark eyeglasses, high ponytail, and large-radius hoop earrings."

"She’d also broken out a pair of knee-high leather boots with heels like stilts. All eyes were drawn to her as she took her seat at the plaintiff’s table."

From the gendered prose stylings of Seth Stevenson at Slate — "Ticktock of a Journalist’s Nightmare/The first day of the Palin v. Times case laid out a tricky path ahead for the former governor—but a 'what if' hung over the court." 

That was published on Thursday. The newer report of the trial by Stevenson is "'Are You Up?'/The excruciating anatomy of a journalistic screwup at day two of the Sarah Palin—New York Times trial." 

At the merciful lunch break, I grabbed some food in the courthouse’s cafeteria. And who should I see when I looked up from my sad yogurt but Gov. Palin herself, wandering in to purchase some sort of hot beverage.  If there was any question about whether Palin qualifies under libel law as a “public figure,” her appearance in the courthouse canteen resolved it. Various law clerks and courthouse staffers who were eating their lunches froze mid-swallow, turned toward Palin, and openly gawked....

Then, in a fantastic collision of tabloid universes, Michael Avenatti—who was at the courthouse because he was being tried on fraud charges—walked in. Palin strolled over to greet him. The celebrity plaintiff and celebrity defendant briefly, and warmly, bantered, before each went their separate way. (Hours later, Avenatti was convicted of stealing $300,000 from a pornographic film actress.)

Yeah, the celebrities know all the other celebrities. They're automatic friends. I note that she strolled over to greet him. It's not as though he came looking for her. And now he's going to have to be a celebrity in prison. What's the structure of celebrity in prison? Palin is the celebrity doing the strolling. She's having her grievances aired — minutely — whether she hits the standard of "actual malice" or not.

And if not, she's got a great shot at being welcomed into the Supreme Court, where Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch are interested in talking about whether public figures ought to have to meet an "actual malice" standard anymore. See "Two Justices Say Supreme Court Should Reconsider Landmark Libel Decision/Justice Neil M. Gorsuch added his voice to that of Justice Clarence Thomas in questioning the longstanding standard for public officials set in New York Times v. Sullivan" (NYT).

"Donald Trump is terrified of Michael Avenatti..."

As the news comes in today that "Michael Avenatti guilty on all counts in Nike extortion case," there's a lot tweeting of this montage from the days when the media inflated Avenatti into a Trump destroying folk hero:

Media + Michael Avenatti = ❤️#ValentinesDay #Avenatti #basta pic.twitter.com/X9xeyNw5Bi

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) February 14, 2020

"His name — quickly forgotten, obviously — Michael Avenatti."

This clip keeps getting better and better every time I watch it.

On Jeopardy tonight, ALL THREE contestants didn't know who @MichaelAvenatti was.

Alex Trebek remarks: "His name quickly forgotten obviously." pic.twitter.com/bCvQkTouVA

— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) November 15, 2019

Avenatti arrested — accused of "threatening to use his ability to garner publicity to inflict substantial financial and reputational harm on the company if his demands were not met."

Federal prosecutors said, reported in the NYT.

Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States Attorney in Manhattan, said at a news conference that Mr. Avenatti’s conduct amounted to a “shakedown.”

“Avenatti used illegal and extortionate threates for the purpose of obtaining millions of dollars in payments from a public company,’’ he said. “Calling this anticipated payout a retainer or a settlement doesn’t change what it was — a shakedown. When lawyers use their law licenses as weapons, as a guise to extort payments for themselves, they are no longer acting as attorneys.”...

Mr. Avenatti said he would refrain from publicizing his evidence if Nike paid $1.5 million to his client, who is not named, the court documents said. He also demanded that Nike hire him and another lawyer to conduct an internal investigation, for billings worth between $15 million and $25 million, court documents said.

It's Trump's lucky week.

By the way, was what Avenatti did to Trump a "shakedown"?

And, I just love that Avenatti's chosen weapon was — in the words of the prosecutors — "garnering publicity." As you may know, I look askance at those who find a need to use the word "garner." As I said a few years ago (provoked by Jeb Bush):

The only reason to say "garner" is if you think there's something wrong with a very common word that normal people just go ahead and say all the time without thinking they need to rise above it. The word is: "get."

"Michael Avenatti, the lawyer for Stormy Daniels, has denied allegations of domestic violence after his arrest near his ritzy Los Angeles skyscraper apartment."

"'I have never struck a woman, I never will strike a woman,' Avenatti told reporters Wednesday after being booked and posting $50,000 bail. Avenatti said he has been an advocate for women's rights his entire career and is confident that he will be exonerated.... Earlier, he released a statement through his law firm slamming the allegation as 'completely bogus' and intended to harm his reputation...."

From The Chicago Tribune.

You say you've been an advocate for women's rights, but are you also an advocate of the rights of the accused? You should be. I am. And I want you to have all your due process rights.

Also, the public advocacy for women's rights might have something to do with how you treat women in private, but not all that much. I'm not even sure which way it goes. Some people who speak publicly and grandiosely about abstract rights have big problems in the concrete specifics of their personal lives. Charlie Rose. Bill Clinton. Some of these big advocates make me wonder: What are they overcompensating for?

ADDED: From the TMZ report:

We're told security brought her inside the building, took her upstairs and Michael showed up 5 minutes later and ran into the building. He screamed repeatedly, "She hit me first." We're told he angrily added, "This is bulls***, this is f***ing bulls***." We're told he tried getting into the elevator but security denied him access.

"She hit me first" is inconsistent with "I have never struck a woman."

At some point, you will be able to just talk like that on television.

And not just as what we call in the law "fleeting expletives" — words that slip out on live TV before the broadcaster can bleep it. People will just talk like that on TV casually, because it's the way many of us do in normal life.

By the way, Beto lost but (NYT link)....

Most likely he will run for the Senate again in 2020, this time against the Republican who decides to run for the seat John Cornyn is expected to vacate.

Texas will have its congressional Beto soon enough.

ADDED: Then there's this participation from Jon Favreau and Michael Avenatti:

"Michelle always says, 'When they go low, we go high.' No. No. When they go low, we kick them."

Said Eric Holder, quoted at WaPo in "'When they go low, we kick them': How Michelle Obama’s maxim morphed to fit angry and divided times." Morphed? It's not some kind of updating or evolution. It's the opposite. The only coherence comes from understanding that calls for civility are always bullshit — just a con to get the other side to stand down, because when you think incivility suits your interests, suddenly it's a good thing.

[Holder] said a more antagonistic spirit is “what this new Democratic Party is about,” adding, “We are proud as hell to be Democrats. We are willing to fight for the ideals of the Democratic Party.

He tried to clarify that he wasn’t calling for violence, saying later in his remarks, “I don’t mean we do anything inappropriate, we don’t do anything illegal, but we have to be tough and we have to fight.” A combative strategy, he said, would honor the legacy of civil rights leaders, such as Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) and Martin Luther King Jr.

Yeah, MLK had a "nonviolence" shtick but he would have morphed to fit angry and divided times — if only he hadn't been a victim of violence. But Holder says he is "honor[ing] the legacy" of MLK by getting "combative." Maybe MLK was only choosing a means to an end and didn't have high principles at all, but if so, at least he picked effective tactics. Holder isn't even doing that. The angry aggressive approach is failing. Look at the post-Kavanaugh-hearings polls.

The WaPo article also has the new Hillary Clinton quote (which we talked about yesterday here): "You cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for, what you care about."

It doesn't have the second part of her quote — "That's why I believe, if we are fortunate enough to win back the House and or the Senate, that's when civility can start again" — which I credit for its humorous frankness. It's what I've been saying for years under my "civility bullshit" tag. In that view, Michelle's "When they go low, we go high" never meant we're lofty and principled and stick to our values, but that the idea we're high and they're low is effective rhetoric.

I suspect going high would have been more effective in 2018 than crazy-sounding combativeness, but in choosing a tactic, you're always at risk of being wrong. If you're principled and do what's right as an end in itself, then if it turns out not to get you want you want, you still have your honor. No one needs to follow you. No one needs to believe in you. But I don't think you are in politics. That's why I say calls for civility are always bullshit.

Combativeness isn't a new idea for Democrats, of course. Michelle Obama's line is memorable, but so is "If you get hit, we will punch back twice as hard" (spoken by Obama's deputy chief of staff Jim Messina in 2009).

Other recent rejection of "When they go low, we go high," collected in the WaPo article:

Elena Kagan won't talk about the Kavanaugh controversy, but she will talk about how the Court functions with only 8 Justices.

Kagan was speaking at UCLA law school on Thursday night, and she spoke with experience about the problem of an 8-Justice Court's vulnerability to 4-4 splits, since that is the situation her Court confronted for the year that passed between the death of Antonin Scalia and the swearing-in of Neil Gorsuch.

"None of us wanted to look as if the court couldn’t do its job," she said. "I think we all felt as though the country needed to feel that the court was a functioning institution no matter what was happening outside."...

She said justices engaged in lengthier discussions at the time and even worked on finding agreement on smaller points when they couldn’t settle the larger issues at stake.... Even with a full court, Kagan said consensus-building, “especially perhaps in a time of acrimony and partisanship in the country at large, makes a lot of sense.”

“The court’s strength as an institution in American governance depends on people believe in it having a certain legitimacy ... that it is not simply an extension of politics,” she said.

I read that to mean that it's more important to sustain belief in a myth than to see the actual truth. The myth is that the Supreme Court is "not simply an extension of politics." I note that she phrases the myth at a more easily credible level than what some people would like us to believe — such as the Court is completely above all politics. That is, after all, the myth that prevails at confirmation hearings, where the nominees all say that they will do nothing but decide cases according to the law and no political leanings will come into play and distort their entirely legal reasoning. Kagan only says that the Court decides cases in a way that is "not simply an extension of politics."

Not "simply," but how about complexly? Not merely "an extension" of the politics, but isn't it, as it operates independently, doing something that a sophisticated person will understand to be political?

It's strange to be talking about the importance of useful beliefs over truth in the context of the controversy Kagan ostensibly seeks to avoid. What are the other institutions whose strength depends on our believing that they have a certain legitimacy?

The Senate. Should we believe in its legitimacy to keep it strong? That's not the Kagan idea. To transplant her idea to the Senate: The Senate itself should do what it can to inspire our belief it is performing its advise-and-consent role grounded in good procedure and principle. It is struggling to do that, and the struggle is much easier to see than the inner workings of the Supreme Court.

The patriarchy. Is it good for us to believe that it is legitimate? Just calling it — what is it?! — "the patriarchy" makes it sound illegitimate. I bet you — some of you — want to say it doesn't even exist. But if it does exist in America, it wants us to believe in it as something with a different name — perhaps meritocracy or individual choice. Believe in that, and you'll keep it strong.

The #MeToo movement. Its strength as an institution depends on people believing in it as having quite a lot of legitimacy. It's fragile. Overuse it and it will collapse. Won't it? If not, we should be afraid of its strength. But unlike the Supreme Court, it's not a small group of people who can consult and reach consensus about how far to extend its power and how to perform its power in public. There are millions of people who can tap the power of the movement. There's the relatively careful release of the Christine Blasey Ford allegations, and there's the follow on enthusiasm of Michael Avenatti and who knows who might suddenly speak up on social media?

Julie Swetnick "said she witnessed Judge Kavanaugh... lining up outside a bedroom where 'numerous boys' were 'waiting for their "turn" with a girl inside the room.'"

"Ms. Swetnick said she was raped at one of the parties, and she believed she had been drugged. None of Ms. Swetnick’s claims could be independently corroborated by The New York Times, and her lawyer, Michael Avenatti, declined to make her available for an interview.... Unlike two other women who have accused Judge Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct, one who went to college with him and another who went to a sister high school, Ms. Swetnick offered no explanation in her statement of how she came to attend the same parties, nor did she identify other people who could verify her account.... In her statement, Ms. Swetnick said that she met Judge Kavanaugh and Mr. Judge in 1980 or 1981 when she was introduced to them at a house party in the Washington are... She said she attended at least 10 house parties in the Washington area from 1981 to 1983 where the two were present. She said the parties were common, taking place almost every weekend during the school year. She said she observed Judge Kavanaugh drinking 'excessively' at many of the parties and engaging in 'abusive and physically aggressive behavior toward girls, including pressing girls against him without their consent, "grinding" against girls, and attempting to remove or shift girls’ clothing to expose private body parts. I also witnessed Brett Kavanaugh behave as a "mean drunk" on many occasions at these parties.'"

The NYT reports today.

If the allegations are true, there must be many, many other witnesses. Where have they been all these weeks? And why would she go to "at least 10 house parties" if they were as she described?

The NYT suggests there's a gap in the account because Swetnick doesn't say how she got to go to the same parties as Kavanaugh. We're told Swetnick grew up in Montgomery County, Md., and graduated from Gaithersburg High School — a public school — in 1980 and attended the University of Maryland. That puts her in a less elite crowd. She's also 2 years older than Kavanaugh and graduated from high school 3 years before he did, so it makes it a little hard to picture them at the same parties. Did older, state-college women go to parties with prep school boys years younger than them? If they did and the boys raped them, repeatedly and systematically, how could the boys get away with it, and why are there not many more women coming forward with the same allegations? And why are we getting this through Michael Avenatti?

"These are smears, pure and simple. And they debase our public discourse ... But they are also a threat to any man or woman who wishes to serve our country."

"Such grotesque and obvious character assassination — if allowed to succeed — will dissuade competent and good people of all political persuasions from service. I will not be intimidated into withdrawing from this process. The coordinated effort to destroy my good name will not drive me out. The vile threats of violence against my family will not drive me out. The last-minute character assassination will not succeed."

Writes Brett Kavanaugh, quoted in the NYT. Also in the Times article is this undermining of the New Yorker's publication of a new allegation from a former Yale classmate named Deborah Ramirez:

The New York Times had interviewed several dozen people over the past week in an attempt to corroborate Ms. Ramirez’s story, and could find no one with firsthand knowledge. Ms. Ramirez herself contacted former Yale classmates asking if they recalled the episode and told some of them that she could not be certain Mr. Kavanaugh was the one who exposed himself. The New Yorker strongly stood by its article.

The NYT also refers to Michael Avenatti's "additional salacious allegations on Twitter," and characterizes Republicans as "caught between the growing anger of many female voters over the Kavanaugh allegations and the demands of core conservative voters infuriated by what they see as a Democratic plot."

The new allegations — from Avenatti and The New Yorker — are, I think, helping Kavanaugh's case. The NYT seems to realize this.

I read between the lines that NYT would not itself have published the Ramirez allegations. It had the story and tried unsuccessfully to corroborate it. And it won't even repeat the "salacious" allegations Avenatti dumped on Twitter. After all the careful work creating credence and empathy for Christine Blasey Ford, we now have an onslaught, a piling on, and it's making Kavanaugh into a sort of hero, who must stand his ground. It's no longer just about the fulfillment of his own aspirations to power and prestige and his own good name. He's now the champion of everyone in the future who — if he fails — will reject the call to public service.

ADDED: A preview of Kavanaugh on FOX News at 7 Eastern:

"I'm not going to let false accusations drive us out of this process." —Brett Kavanaugh

Watch @MarthaMacCallum's full interview with Judge Kavanaugh and his wife Ashley tonight on Fox News Channel at 7p ET. https://t.co/QFmLfIwW4R pic.twitter.com/r8J2TUYQDj

— Fox News (@FoxNews) September 24, 2018

"I'm a sentimental sap, that's all/What's the use of trying not to fall?/I have no will, you've made your kill/'Cause you took advantage of me!"

That's a 1928 song with lyrics by Lorenz Hart.

I'm thinking about it this morning after reading the questions Michael Avenatti proposed that the Senate Judiciary Committee ask Brett Kavanaugh: "Did you ever witness a line of men outside a bedroom at any house party where you understood a woman was in the bedroom being raped or taken advantage of?” and whether "he ever tried to prevent men from raping or taking advantage of women at any house party." I called "taken advantage of" a "strange locution." You're inquiring about rape, but you're lumping it together with sex where there's "taking advantage."

I'm so hot and bothered that I don't know
My elbow from my ear...

Or — to read Ronan Farrow in The New Yorker — you're so drunk you don't know a plastic penis from a fleshly one.

Here I am with all my bridges burned
Just a babe in arms where you're concerned
So lock the doors and call me yours
'Cause you took advantage of me

The Wikipedia article about the song says it "can be sung by either gender, but has traditionally been sung by women." Here. Check out the feeling when a man sings it (and here's my 2005 post "Songs transformed with the sex of the singer"):



I have no will, you've made your kill...

What's the use of Brett Kavanaugh trying not to fall?

I'm just like an apple on a bough/And you're gonna shake me down somehow...

With the devious use of the disjunctive "or," Michael Avenatti raises a cloud of "gang rape" suspicion around Brett Kavanaugh.

I'm reading the shockingly titled Daily News article "Brett Kavanaugh and pals accused of gang rapes in high school, says lawyer Michael Avenatti."

“We are aware of significant evidence of multiple house parties in the Washington, D.C. area during the early 1980s during which Brett Kavanaugh, Mark Judge and others would participate in the targeting of women with alcohol/drugs in order to allow a ‘train’ of men to subsequently gang rape them,” Avenatti said in an email to Mike Davis, chief counsel for nominations for the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Gang rape??!!!

Yes, Avenatti wrote "gang rape" in his email to the Committee. And not just one gang rape — multiple gang rapes. What is the sudden, breakout hysteria?!

Avenatti did not disclose any details or identities of his witnesses.

All eyes on Avenatti. What a trickster this man is! Let's look at what he dropped on the public last night, just as we were hearing the weird new allegation that came out in The New Yorker. We'd barely had the chance to begin to process the story of a Yale college woman who, while seemingly too drunk to be sure if she was looking at a real penis or a fake one, saw Brett Kavanaugh pulling up his pants and heard — as she remembers it — somebody say his name. And then along came Avenatti to waggle his teaser at us. Boldface added:

Avenatti hinted at the nature of his allegations when he suggested to the Senate Judiciary Committee a series of questions to ask Kavanaugh.

One of his questions: “Did you ever target one or more women for sex or rape at a house party? Did you ever assist Mark Judge or others in doing so?”

Also, Avenatti suggested asking Kavanaugh: “Did you ever attend any house party during which a woman was gang raped or used for sex by multiple men?”

And: “Did you ever witness a line of men outside a bedroom at any house party where you understood a woman was in the bedroom being raped or taken advantage of?”

Avenatti also said Kavanaugh should be asked if he ever tried to prevent men from raping or taking advantage of women at any house party....

Are those the questions Avenatti used when collecting his witnesses — with "rape" never asked about independently from "sex" (or the strange locution "taken advantage of")?

Should Kavanaugh opponents welcome Avenatti's entrance onto this scene? I hear in him the echoes of a longstanding fight against fraternities and the accusation that they are a conspiracy of rapists. We got deeply into this issue back when Rolling Stone published its piece on the University of Virginia which turned out into a fiasco for those who sprung at an opportunity to describe a specific incident to stand in for all the bad behavior they wanted to alarm us about. Here we go again. I assume — but what do I know? — that there is horrible sex going on in the context of college drinking parties. I assume a lot of young women and men get hurt. They are used for sex and taken advantage of and — especially if you broadly define the word — raped.

You could cast aspersions on every man who ever belonged to a fraternity that held drinking parties. But should that serious problem be suddenly dumped on Brett Kavanaugh?

What Avenatti is doing resonates with something I wrote on September 18th: "The question that can destroy Brett Kavanaugh: Have you ever been so drunk you could not remember what happened?"

College happened. There is a drinking culture. It's tied to cheap, drunken sex. Can Kavanaugh assure us that he was never anywhere close to that?

Are you and everyone you care about free of the fraternity gang rape stink? If Kavanaugh falls, are you ready for the fall of every man who had drunken sex in college?

Isn't this how we know Bill Clinton exposed himself to Paula Jones?

"When Daniels came out of the bathroom, she claims Trump was lying on the bed in his underwear. They had sex. She then describes his genitalia in great detail. 'His penis is distinctive in a certain way,' she writes. Proof, her attorney Michael Avenatti says, she is tired of being called a liar by Trump’s people."

From "CNN’s Jake Tapper Dedicates Segment to Trump’s Penis" (Breitbart).

Oh, look! It's Roseanne. 1998. Dragging out the penile details:



Is the woman lying? To ask the question is to express a desire for corroborating evidence. If the offense is sexual, I'm afraid the evidence might trigger your ickiness reaction. Too bad! How would you like it if you stopped by to see the governor and he whipped it out, erect, and said "kiss it"? You're only hearing about it, not suffering through it.

From "Clinton scandal: Privates on parade as sex harassment case turns ugly" (November 7, 1997):

[Paula Jones's] lawyers have... named... women believed to be former girlfriends of the President, including Gennifer Flowers. She is the woman named during the 1992 election campaign as his long-time mistress, who has steadfastly refused to speak against him.

The strategy is two-fold: to show "a pattern of behaviour" in Mr Clinton's past and to demonstrate the veracity of an affidavit Ms Jones reportedly swore when she first brought her case three years ago that could prove her case. In the affidavit, Ms Jones apparently describes "distinguishing characteristics" of Mr Clinton's "genital area".

Last month, it seemed the puzzle of the distinguishing characteristics had been solved, when newspapers quoted "sources" as saying she referred to a curvature of the President's erect penis - a phenomenon said to be caused by Peyronie's disease. The theory was backed up by more "informed sources" saying that Mr Clinton had been tested for this condition during his annual medical examination the previous week.

Did we ever find out if Bill Clinton is really bent like that? The Onion had the story in 2005: "Bill Clinton Finally Just Shows America His Penis." Funny, right? It was 2005, and #MeToo hadn't clicked in yet. But time's up now. And it's not funny anymore.

ADDED: You may have reached the end of this post with the question what is "distinctive" about Trump's genitalia. And good for you if you didn't. What a fine person you are! If you did, you don't have to by Stormy's book to get the answer. The NY Post has it. Should I just send you there, or should I quote "He knows he has an unusual penis... It has a huge mushroom head. Like a toadstool…like the mushroom character in Mario Kart"?

Lawyer on lawyer on lawyer on lawyer action.

My questions to @MichaelAvenatti aren’t personal. They’re professional: did you initiate a conversation with Cohen without authorization from his lawyer? Are you aware this may violate ethical rules? Please answer without getting personal. https://t.co/YG2rijjN7j

— Alan Dershowitz (@AlanDersh) July 28, 2018

ADDED: Funny that Trump himself uses the term "Trump Derangement Syndrome."

Why was Stormy Daniels arrested last night in a strip club in Ohio?

I saw the story first in The Daily Mail:

Stormy Daniels has been arrested in Ohio for allegedly grabbing an undercover officer's backside while performing in a strip club....

Then I saw it in the NYT:

Stephanie Clifford, the pornographic film actress who said she had an affair with Donald J. Trump before he became president, was arrested at a strip club in Columbus, Ohio, her lawyer said early Thursday.

Ms. Clifford, who performs under the name Stormy Daniels, had been scheduled to appear at Sirens Gentlemen’s Club in northeastern Columbus....

She was arrested “for allegedly allowing a customer to touch her while on stage in a non sexual manner,” her lawyer, Michael Avenatti, said on Twitter....

The Daily Mail does at some point in the article get to the lawyer's presentation of what happened:

On Twitter, Avenatti said: 'My client Stormy Daniels was arrested in Columbus, Ohio, while performing same act she has performed across the nation at nearly a hundred clubs. This was a setup and politically motivated. It reeks of desperation. We will fight all bogus charges.'

And, for its part, the NYT does eventually get around to this:

Police officers at the club said that while dancing topless, Ms. Clifford pressed patrons’ faces into her chest and fondled the breasts of some women in the audience, according to an affidavit filed by the police. She performed similar acts on three officers, and grabbed one by the buttocks, the affidavit said.

It's a story with 2 sides (at least). There's an Ohio law governing the operation of a "sexually oriented business." I think what Avenatti is referring to when he speaks of touching "in a non sexual manner," is that the text of the statute bars all touching, which just deprives you of any room to defend yourself by saying it wasn't sexual:

No employee who regularly appears nude or seminude on the premises of a sexually oriented business, while on the premises of that sexually oriented business and while nude or seminude, shall knowingly touch a patron who is not a member of the employee's immediate family or another employee who is not a member of the employee's immediate family or the clothing of a patron who is not a member of the employee's immediate family or another employee who is not a member of the employee's immediate family or allow a patron who is not a member of the employee's immediate family or another employee who is not a member of the employee's immediate family to touch the employee or the clothing of the employee.

What?? I've already spent too much time trying to figure out if that's a misprint and I am on the verge of losing my mind. My guess is that some Ohio legislators were a little freaked out by the idea of anybody touching anybody and then went hyper over the idea that the state was making it a crime to hug your own father or husband.