Was Michael Avenatti duped by 4chan in regards to a 3rd Kavanaugh accuser?

In what has to be the dumbest story since Hillary Clinton's campaign website took Pepe the Frog seriously, political pundit and lawyer Michael Avenatti has been accused of being duped by 4chan. Avenatti had been posting on Twitter for days now saying more and more outlandish things about Brett Kavanaugh, Trump's SCOTUS pick. He said that Kavanaugh was gang-raping people back in high school and college and was trying to decipher Kavanaugh's comments on his yearbook.

However, last night, an anonymous user on 4chan's /pol/ board claimed that the whole thing was a hoax. The use claimed that he had a stripper girlfriend call Avenatti claiming more and more stupid things and Avenatti buying it hook line and sinker. He then claims to be a classmate of Kavanaugh's and confirms his stripper girlfriend's story. He claims Avenatti was offering to pay his girlfriend $75,000 as well as guaranteeing that she would get more via gofundme. Eventually he tires of the prank and gets rid of their burner phones and Avenatti disables his Twitter account.

For his part Avenatti denied everything. The Hill has a pretty good round up of the whole sordid affair. I'm going to post a link to the original 4chan thread and a  post a slightly edited version of the post here. Keep in mind it's 4chan's /pol/ board so it's politically incorrect and INCREDIBLY not safe for work. Click at your own risk.

So what's my take on this? For one thing it's incredibly stupid no matter what the truth is. Whenever 4chan leaks out into the real world it's always a stupid and surreal experience. Though I have long said that 4chan's /pol/ board is probably the most influential political board on earth right now, it's still 4chan. People shouldn't take it this seriously. Ever. 

Is it real though? It's certainly possible. 4chan has pulled some major pranks before and have been accused of even more. I still remember a user taking credit for the infamous dossier that was used as a basis to spy on Donald Trump's campaign, specifically the part about the peeing prostitutes. That accusation was never proven but other things are more likely to be real. 4chan users have shown that they are smart and determined and have done things like troll the hell out of Shia LaBeouf and call in airstikes on terrorists. They are certainly capable of doing this. 

But that doesn't mean they did. Given the nature of 4chan and the fact that all users are anonymous it's pretty much impossible to confirm any stories on the website. Indeed, the link makes me think that the thing is fake. First of all the original poster only made one post, which is a major sign of a shill thread. Second, the format looks off like the user didn't really understand how 4chan works. And of course, it's a website full of trolls that would lie about this just for the fun of it. 

A brief perusal of 4chan shows they are going nuts about this. They seem to think that this is a false flag against them by the Democrats in order to discredit Michael Avenatti. Avenatti's shrill claims of completely over the top sexual assaults committed by Brett Kavanaugh were discrediting even the already unbelievable claims against him.

 I also think in this scenario, it might be part of a more general campaign to discredit Avenatti. In addition to the Kavanaugh claims Avenatti was deep in the Stormy Daniels non-story that the media was obsessed with. Avenatti used that to propel himself into a political figure. Avenatti is popular among the #Resistance crowd, but would be an absolute disaster if he runs for president. He could even be a pied piper candidate that could overshadow more credible ones and pretty much guarantee that Trump win his second term. Taking him out in this way could help the Democrats in 2020. I can't see many people taking him seriously after this.

My guess though is that this was just a random troll. It is 4chan after all and for every real story that gets broken on the website there are probably dozens of fake ones. And if it was a troll, it was a successful one. He not only embarrassed the Democrats and Avenatti, he also did the same thing to 4chan and even got massive media attention for it. That's all a troll wants and more. 

As for the Kavanaugh confirmation, I think it will happen now. The original accusers won't testify and I think there are enough votes for Kavanaugh to pass, especially after Avenatti got embarrassed like this. Even the GOP leadership is getting tired of the circus and wants to put it behind them. My guess is that there is a vote this Friday and Kavanaugh is confirmed. This will likely just be a footnote in an already stupid and frustrating story.