Avenatti now facing charges of extortion, tax evasion, embezzlement, and more
Arkansas Democrat Josh Mahony, who hopes to challenge incumbent Sen. Tom Cotton (R), has hired a former treasurer for attorney Michael Avenatti’s PAC.
Federal Election Commission documents show Amy Gray as the treasurer for the Mahony campaign, and other filings list her as the treasurer for Avenatti’s political action committee, “The Fight,” which he launched in August 2018.
Gray also served as a treasurer for the Ready for Hillary PAC, which later changed its name to Ready PAC.
The Washington Free Beacon reported last month that Avenatti appeared to use the PAC as a personal slush fund, reimbursing himself just under $32,000 for food, drink, hotels and transportation in one quarter alone.
Since being feted as a threatening potential challenger to Trump in the late summer and fall of 2018, Avenatti has experienced a vertiginous fall.
Stormy Daniels, the client who helped rocket Avenatti to political notoriety, dropped him as her counsel in March, although some media reports cast doubt as to which person had terminated the relationship.
Weeks later, federal prosecutors announced extortion charges against Avenatti, claiming he had tried to wring $25 million from Nike in exchange for not making public allegations that the company had paid bribes to some college athletes and their families. more here
Crooks of a feather flock together.
Last election Cotton beat the Democrat incumbent by 17% so I don’t think it matters who is running Mahoney’s finances it won’t help or hinder his coming defeat. I will say though, it’s nice to have something like this in the back pocket in case anything dodgy comes up finance wise Cotton can point to Gray as running a PAC for Hillary with dodgy financials and now one for Mahoney and then question Mahoney’s judgement. Hell, do it anyway just for fun.