Im Gipper said:
It's like the crowd at the bar in Star Wars!
The funny thing to me is that the prosecution tried very hard to innoculate the jury from Cohen's past. Not so much Stormy. But if that attempt to innoculate the jury towards Cohen defense can turn that around and ask the jury to apply that same non-standard for Avenatti?
I have been thinking about a prison based deposition of Avenatti being possibly introduced due to his unavailability being in a federal prison in California? Do it on a Wednesday since that is a non-court day? One of the prosecutors could attend. Hell, do a zoom appearance during trial?
Look at the news consumption of the jurors. They will know Avenatti since he was on MSNBC and CNN and featured in the NYT and WaPo during his reign as the next POTUS candidate.
Further, yeah Avenatti was caught and is in prison but compared to Cohen? That's six of one half a dozen on the other.
OTOH, Garland can guarantee an early release now if Avenatti double crosses the Trump legal team. That's
Giglio material that must be disclosed but Merchan does not care about that and Trump's team know that.
Risky.