The Democrats, after betting the farm on Hillary Clinton to beat Donald Trump in 2016, have been looking for a way to take Trump out ever since. Michael Avenatti emerged as their weapon of choice. Now, after his spectacular burn out during the Kavanaugh hearings, the Democrats are realizing that they chose… poorly.

What happens when the Democrats have buyer’s remorse? Call in the media, and show why people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. Michael Avenatti, you see, has a LOT of tax issues and debt.

Tax liens filed in Orange County also show that Avenatti has personally owed at least $1.2 million in federal taxes on top of the corporate debts. One lien, filed in February 2018, was for $308,396, while another filed in August 2015 showed a balance of $903,987. The Daily Beast did not find records showing the liens were released, but Avenatti claims both debts were “fully paid.”

He is also not forthcoming about who owns what when it comes to his businesses. Shocking, isn’t it, that a lawyer isn’t forthcoming about his financial assets.

A Newport Beach landlord began eviction proceedings last month against Eagan Avenatti in Orange County Superior Court. The real-estate entity claims Eagan Avenatti failed to make rent for three storage spaces and a 8,371-square-foot suite, totaling more than $107,415 for the months of July and August. (A lawyer representing the Irvine Company, which manages the rentals, declined to comment.)

On Oct. 18, the landlord filed court papers indicating Eagan Avenatti owes $213,253 in rent as of this month.

Avenatti told The Daily Beast he divested his interest in Eagan Avenatti within the last 12 months and that he now operates under Avenatti & Associates. “None of those obligations are my responsibility,” he said, when asked about the eviction case. Avenatti said he would forward this publication’s queries to the firm’s new owner, but declined to name them.

Yet in a Sept. 7 answer to the landlord’s complaint, signed by Avenatti himself, he claimed Eagan Avenatti made repairs to the suite and subtracted the cost from the rent. The firm offered to pay the rent due, Avenatti continued, but that the landlord “would not accept it.”

The Daily Beast also interviewed his second wife, and got details on their divorce. You know the hype is over when the media interviews the ex-wife.

Lisa Storie-Avenatti says the couple enjoyed a multimillion-dollar home in Newport Beach, international and domestic travel via private jet, and a collection of art and exotic cars.

In one declaration, filed in January, Storie-Avenatti said, “Petitioner and I enjoyed a very extravagant marital lifestyle. In October 2011, we bought a home in Laguna for $7.2 million and sold it in September 2015 for $12.6 million.”

“We traveled extensively throughout the world, and, when not flying privately, we always flew business class and stayed at five-star hotels,” Storie-Avenatti said in the court filing, adding that they regularly visited Cabo (where they held their destination wedding and paid expenses for 20 guests), the French Riviera, and Paris.

“I had unfettered use of credit cards that were in my name. My American Express bill was historically on average of $60,000 to $70,000 per month, and was paid in full each month,” Storie-Avenatti added in court papers.

The ex-wife says that she and their 3 year old son were “cut off” from his income.

Avenatti stopped paying rent on their Newport Beach home, where Storie-Avenatti and their son lived, but his “luxurious lifestyle continues unimpeded,” an attorney for the estranged spouse claimed in divorce pleadings.

After Avenatti moved out of their home in August 2017, he snagged a $14,000-a-month apartment at the posh Ten Thousand skyscraper in Los Angeles, Storie-Avenatti said in court documents.

Avenatti did not appear to contest his ex-wife’s claims about their high-flying lifestyle, but he did say she was “placing unreasonable restrictions” on spending time with their son. His attorneys also fought her requests for his financial statements, according to a review of court records.

In July, a judge ordered child support of $31,981 per month, and $124,398 per month in spousal support, based on Lisa Storie’s expenses.

The judge also ordered Avenatti to pay $185,000 in attorney’s fees and $30,000 in expert fees.

His refusal to let his ex-wife look at the tax returns seems problematic, no?

Avenatti’s lawyers called the requests “unduly burdensome and oppressive” and said the demand for tax returns “violates the right to financial privacy,” according to Orange County court filings in his divorce proceeding. They also objected on the grounds that the documents were “protected by the attorney-client privilege or work product doctrine.”

One July minute order indicated Judge Carol L. Henson noticed Avenatti hadn’t complied with Lisa Storie’s requests for documents. “[T]he court notes that it is not appropriate to turn a blind eye that none of the requests have been complied with by the petitioner [Avenatti].” She added that, “There are no tax returns, bank statements, no income & expense declarations, no preliminary declaration of disclosure and no financial documents.”

Avenatti, who trolls the president on Twitter daily, has mostly stayed mum on the issue of releasing his tax returns.

And that doesn’t even begin to cover the money owed to employees – including a wrongful termination judgment relating to the now-defunct Tully’s Coffee chain. Wait, I thought this guy was supposed to be a champion of women and fighting against the misogyny of Donald Trump? Beth Eno was a manager at a Tully’s Coffee location, who was fired after she told her boss that she was pregnant.

Eno later filed an unlawful-termination lawsuit against Global Baristas, Tully’s parent company, claiming her firing amounted to illegal discrimination against a pregnant woman.

Other than firing her shortly after she informed them that she was expecting, Tully’s officials “failed to provide a justification for Ms. Eno’s termination based on poor job performance or to further a legitimate business necessity,” the suit said.

And when Tully’s didn’t respond to Eno’s lawsuit, a judge awarded her a $120,585 default judgment against her former employer.

Seven months later, Eno has recovered a grand total of $34.08 — an amount that doesn’t come close to covering the $405 in legal paperwork costs to collect it.

Eno’s is among a list of judgments awarded in recent months to landlords, vendors and other Tully’s creditors who have allegedly been stiffed by the Seattle-based coffee chain, as it spiraled into financial trouble and shuttered its stores.

But amid the business’ turmoil, Michael Avenatti, who had been Tully’s principal owner for several years, separately has rocketed to fame as the crusading lawyer for a porn star taking on the president.

“It’s ironic, isn’t it,” Eno said of Avenatti. “He portrays himself as a defender of the disadvantaged when his company has taken full advantage of me.”

To top it all off with the cherry of irony, the lawyer lost to Trump in the courtroom this last week, when Stormy Daniels lost her defamation suit against the president, and then was ordered to pay Trump’s legal fees.

While Avenatti holds out hope that this will be reversed on appeal, Democrats are backing away from him. And he might be getting the hint.

NEW – What became of this resistance rally? @MichaelAvenatti tells me the Oct. 22 date announced by the Trump campaign, with only a week's notice, conflicted with his schedule and prevented him from holding the counter-rally. He adds, "It's Beto's show because it's his race." https://t.co/cQJynxv99T

— Geoff Bennett (@GeoffRBennett) October 21, 2018

Michael Avenatti is going to run for president in 2020. There is zero doubt about that. He now gets to be the millstone that hangs around the necks of the left during their primary season, even as they are attempting to discredit and shed him as fast as possible. And if, by some twist of the universe, he ends up as the Democratic nominee, we had all better start looking for the hidden cameras. We truly will be living in “Idiocracy” end times.

Featured image: Michael Avenatti (screenshot via YouTube)