Stormy Daniels Cooperating with Investigators
COOPER: More breaking news. We learned that the FBI raid on President Trump's lawyer targeted records relating to payments to former adult film stars Stormy Daniels and the deal involving American Media Incorporated and former Playboy playmate model Karen McDougal. Who both claimed they have affairs within citizen Trump. The White House has denied the affairs. There's another development tied to Ms. Daniels, a source tells us she is cooperating with federal investigators who were looking into her 2016 non-disclosure agreement and a $130,000 hush money payment from -- or that was facilitated in Michael Cohen's words. Joining me now is Stormy Daniels' attorney, Michael Avenatti. First of all, your not be able to talk about it or the specifics, but this idea that she's cooperating with the feds can you say anything about it?</s>MICHAEL AVENATTI, STORMY DANIELS' ATTORNEY: Well, Anderson, here is what I will say. We were contacted by various attorneys from the government that are looking into this. We're going to cooperate fully. We're going to be as user friendly as possible. We're going to respect the process. We understand the seriousness of this. This took on a whole other level with the last 48 hours.</s>COOPER: Can you say, when you were contacted?</s>AVENATTI: I'm not going to get into when we where contacted, I'm not going to get into the content of those discussions. What I will say is we're going to cooperate. And we're going to do whatever we can to assist that investigation. We're not going to require FBI raids to cooperate or to tell the truth. Our entire intent for the last five, six weeks on this case, has been to expose the facts, expose the truth for the American people to learn as much as possible, what happened here and to the extend that we can assist in the investigation and accomplish that, that's what we're going to do.</s>COOPER: I just learned that, apparently Stormy Daniels has -- is going to be appearing on the cover of Penthouse Magazine in May, gave a link the interview as described to us. Do you know anything about that? Were you aware of that?</s>AVENATTI: I'm not going to get into what I was aware or not aware. I'm not aware of the appearance of the magazine, as far as the details of the magazine, or what was said or was not said.</s>COOPER: OK. The -- we heard from Michael Cohen today, who talked with Don Lemon, when asked if he was worry, he said, "I'd be lying to you if I told you I'm, do I need this in my life? No. Do I want to involved in this, no. he said that the agents in the raid were professional, courteous and respectful which is certainly a far cry from the way the President described as the agents breaking into his office. Do you have any belief that what happened to Michael Cohen's office and his hotel room and his apartments or house is linked to what the President said just last week in which he indicated that Michael Cohen was his attorney, but he knew nothing about this. Essentially saying that some people have suggested that meant that attorney/client privilege would not be involved because Michael Cohen was not acting as the President's attorney in whatever he did with Stormy Daniels.</s>AVENATTI: Well, let me take couple things. First of all, you know, while it maybe good for CNN for Michael Cohen to be speaking to Don Lemon is moronic under the circumstances. And it will --</s>COOPER: It</s>AVENATTI: Yes, I mean any experience attorney would tell a client not to be speaking to the press, the day after the FBI executes three search warrants on your homes and your offices. I mean this is just crazy, it's ludicrous. When I heard that he actually spoke to Don Lemon, I didn't believe it, until I saw Don's report, and low and behold I believe that Don that it happened. It's beyond stupid. So that's number one. I don't understand what he is doing. That's first. Secondly, I still cannot believe that the President made these statements on Air Force One and effectively put his own personal attorney in the cross hairs by way of those statements. Put the way to the world really.</s>COOPER: How are you saying the President put him in the cross hairs?</s>AVENATTI: Well, by saying that he didn't know anything about it. And that -- that he basically referred everyone to Michael Cohen. And he said he is Michael Cohen up to be the fall guy in my view. I said this last week. And there is now a false sense of security, I think on behalf of the President that Michael Cohen is going to take the fall for this and that Michael Cohen is going to be able to withstand this amount of pressure and heat. Look, if you're going to have a fixer, you need -- there's need to be two attributes on that fixer. First of all, he better be really smart or she better be really smart. And secondly, he or she should be able to withstand a significant amount of pressure, a significant amount of heat, and go potentially go to prison for you. That's the best picture you can possibly have. In my view, Michael Cohen doesn't fit either one of those requirements.</s>COOPER: For all his talk to being incredibly loyal to President Trump, then Donald Trump of being a guy who, you know, is the keeper of all the secrets, the tough guy, you don't believe that in the end he would go to jail for his client.</s>AVENATTI: I don't. I mean I said this last night.</s>COOPER: If that in fact, you know, was</s>AVENATTI: Correct, I don't. I said this last night, I'm going to say it again. Any guy in my experience who has to constantly tell you how tough he is, or refer to himself as Ray Donovan, is not a tough guy. He is more -- he is closer to a purse puppy than a tough guy. I'm going to stand behind those statements. The problem is this. And it's been a constant problem I think for Mr. Trump. Over the last 20 years, he has not surrounded himself with the best and the brightest when it comes to lawyers and people around him. And you've seen that even more recently in the last 18 months and now, this is going to come home to roost as it relays to Michael Cohen. He picked the wrong fixer, he trust that too many personal secrets with Michael Cohen. And I think Michael Cohen is going to fold like a cheap deck of cards on Mr. Trump, and the results are going to be very, very bad.</s>COOPER: Michael Avenatti, appreciate your time.</s>AVENATTI: Thank you.</s>COOPER: Thank you very much. Coming up, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says, he is sorry. We'll have more on what Zuckerberg said on Capitol Hill today, got everything from privacy to the special counsel investigation. We'll also her from Senator Amy Klobuchar on what she thought this testimony, next.