First they came after Donald Trump, and now they’re coming for immigrants. Not content to rest on the heady laurels of their slow takedown of the Commander of Cheese and his boy Cohen, Michael “Basta” Avenatti and his client Stormy Daniels are each gearing up to flex their new power against the cowardice and cruelty that defines the United States Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Though he tells The Washington Post that it all started with a California family asking for help, Avenatti publicly entered the fray on Sunday morning—via a tweet soliciting referrals to families in need of his services, as outrage over the separation of families at the border threatened to boil over.
Those referrals came in quickly, as did offers of resources. On Monday, Avenatti declared high expectations for his latest legal assault on this oh-so-wrong administration.
By Tuesday, he had an itinerary to meet with his new clients.
Avenatti met with the mothers first, on Wednesday.
He shared their heartbreak, anxieties, and oh, their letters.
The stories weren’t the same, but one thing was consistent...
...these women have no idea where their children are.
Avenatti provided a translation of Levis’ letter that you can find here.
Avenatti also shared this rage-inducing image of the form that parents in custody—like his client Lilian, pictured with her daughter above—are given when they seek information about their stolen children.
Here’s Lilian’s request, loosely translated:
Good morning, could you please send me the phone number to communicate with my daughter Britany?
The official’s response? “I do not have this information.”
Avenatti’s team continued to meet with the mothers, in both Texas and California, before preparing for Thursday’s meetings at a children’s holding facility in Arizona.
Things took a dramatic turn overnight, though. Suddenly, Avenatti and his team were no longer just helping at the micro level—the lawyer announced Thursday that whistleblowers were now coming forward to help him break the wheel, to paraphrase the Mother of Dragons.
He also met with Levis’ son Samir, who didn’t believe his mom still cared about him. After all, he was told he was going away for a bath two weeks ago, and hasn’t seen or heard from her since.
It only took two weeks for Samir to lose faith in his mother’s love. After just two weeks, it took an hour to re-convince him of a truth he’d known his entire life. Samir was just one of four children Avenatti and his team were able to visit, out of the 60 families they’ve taken on as clients.
It’s no secret that this trauma can and likely will affect these children (and their parents) for the rest of their lives—as well as future generations.
Critics of Avenatti predictably claimed he was just doing this for the attention; others wondered if he’d still have time to destroy the president with the Daniels case.
Meanwhile, Stormy Daniels responded to a Twitter plea (from a random account with 22 followers) with a promise of her own.