The infamous attorney for pornographic actress Stormy Daniels, Michael Avenatti had big dreams of being the high-profile Democrat to take down President Trump.  And that’s not all.  As he intimated, he envisioned that he could be the Democrat to take Trump’s place in 2020.  When the Daniels attack failed, Avenatti desperately sought a new way to keep himself in the public eye.  That effort manifested in a now-disgraced attempt to derail Trump nominee Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court by shamelessly promoting false rape allegations against the judge.

Avenatti is soon to be under investigation from the Department of Justice for his sleazy and apparently illegal conduct, and has become a pariah to sensible Democrats.  Those who still follow or defend him are fringe folks who maintain credibility only with the most radical elements of the left-wing political world.

But it has now come to light that Avenatti had a very high-profile accomplice in his corrupt and dishonest smears of Judge Kavanaugh: NBC News.

Here’s a simple summary of what they did, or didn’t do:

• In the heat of the Kavanaugh sexual assault allegations from Dr. Ford, Avenatti surfaced with a client, Julie Swetnick, who claimed that she witnessed Kavanaugh as a high school boy at parties, spiking punch bowls and gang raping girls.
• NBC breathlessly reported Swetnick’s allegations, hosting Avenatti on their platform to promote the allegations.
• When Swetnick’s story began to collapse, Avenatti released an anonymous sworn statement from another woman who claimed to corroborate Swetnick’s accusation.  The statement alleged that she too had seen the punch bowl spiking.
• The same day that Avenatti released the statement, NBC News secretly interviewed this second (anonymous) woman.  Here is what the woman told NBC and they did not report:

Referring to Kavanaugh spiking the punch, “I didn’t ever think it was Brett,” the woman said to reporters in a phone interview arranged by Avenatti on Sept. 30 after repeated requests to speak with other witnesses who might corroborate Swetnick’s claims.

…

When asked in the phone interview if she ever witnessed Kavanaugh act inappropriately towards girls, the woman replied, “no.”

NBC News intentionally chose to let the false punch-spiking and gang rape charges against Kavanaugh linger when they had evidence to clear his name and shame his accusers.  Why would they do that?  What motivates their silence? 

Days into their inexcusable silence, NBC tried again.  They interviewed the same “corroborating” witness that Avenatti had highlighted.  This is what they found out:

[R]eached by phone independently from Avenatti on Oct. 3, the woman said she only “skimmed” the declaration. After reviewing the statement, she wrote in a text on Oct. 4 to NBC News: “It is incorrect that I saw Brett spike the punch. I didn’t see anyone spike the punch…I was very clear with Michael Avenatti from day one.”

When pressed about abusive behavior towards girls, she wrote in a text: “I would not ever allow anyone to be abusive in my presence. Male or female.”

That was October 3^rd, still three days before the Senate confirmation vote.  The left was still using Avenatti’s allegations to lobby undecided Senators to vote against Kavanaugh.  NBC News had information to clear Kavanaugh’s name; they had information to demonstrate the witch-hunt his family had been forced to endure.  And they said nothing.  Nothing until now – three weeks later.

Needless to say, honest, truth-finding organizations don’t behave like this.  Hyper-partisan, dishonest activists do.

Chuck Todd can write as many op-eds as he wants, promoting himself and his colleagues as paragons of virtue and credibility, under attack from a scurrilous president intent on silencing them.  But Trump’s attacks on the integrity of the media only stick, they only work, because the media continually demonstrate they have no integrity.

Michael Avenatti may end up fined, disbarred, or jailed for his slimy tactics.  The question more Americans should be asking is what will happen to his willing accomplices at NBC?