Michael Avenatti lays out ‘domino sequence’ from Cohen wiretap to Trump’s downfall

Attorney Michael Avenatti laid out the "domino sequence" leading from the evidence used to secure a wiretap of lawyer Michael Cohen to the eventual downfall of President Donald Trump.

Federal investigators obtained a wiretap warrant for the longtime Trump attorney, which swept up at least one call with the White House -- and Avenatti told MSNBC's Kasie Hunt that evidence would spell the end of Trump's presidency.

"My understanding is, they were also wiretapping text message communications for the weeks leading up to the FBI raids," Avenatti said.

The attorney for porn actress Stormy Daniels said he believes that wiretap revealed evidence of a conspiracy to commit a crime -- which he said likely prompted the FBI raid of Cohen's home and office.

"I also think that ultimately it will be disclosed that during these wiretaps, the FBI learned of means by which Michael Cohen and others were going to potentially destroy evidence or documentation," Avenatti said. "Once they have that information in hand, that is what served as the predicate or basis to get search the home, the office and the hotel room of Michael Cohen."

"This is going to be ultimately, I think, what the domino sequence will be," he continued. "I think that Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen, upon this -- upon learning of this, are going to be very, very concerned to the extent that they were not concerned already. This is a very serious matter."

He said this won't end well for Trump or his attorney.

"I'm going to go back to what I've been saying for some time now," Avenatti said. "There's no question in my mind that Michael Cohen will be indicted for serious federal crimes relating to, likely, the $130,000 payment and other things, and I think that this increases the chances of what I've said previously. I don't think this president is going to serve out his term -- I just don't."

Avenatti said that evidence would likely be revealed when Cohen was charged, and he suggested the wiretap could have revealed damning evidence against the president, as well, because Trump continued speaking with Cohen until Rudy Giuliani recently warned him to stop.

"Look, we also know that the president is not very disciplined and, in fact, we know he communicated with Michael Cohen not just before the FBI raids," Avenatti said, "but we know that he communicated with Michael Cohen after the FBI raids, and we know that according to Mr. Giuliani, his instruction occurred only in the last few days."

Avenatti said his lawsuit against the president had been filed in early March, which he said gave Trump and Cohen more than a month to discuss the hush money payout to Daniels ahead of the election.

"Those communications may very well now on a recording in the possession of the FBI," he said.

He said the search warrant to conduct the Cohen raid was likely granted in response to evidence of a criminal conspiracy.

"In order to obtain three warrants of that magnitude against a sitting president's personal attorney, that's an incredibly high bar," Avenatti said. "That's one of the only ways that you can obtain something like that is if you showed exigent circumstance, an emergency almost whereby it was likely that the target was going to be destroying evidence and documents."