Michael Avenatti says he would be 'stupid' to count on Trump's pardon, considering being a Republican.

Jailed attorney Michael Avenatti made headlines earlier this year when the former adversary of Donald Trump expressed sympathy for the former president amid his criminal convictions, with observers speculating that he is fishing for a pardon if Trump returns to the White House.

But now that Trump has been elected president, Avenatti told Fox News Digital from his California prison that he would be “a fool” to count on that.

“If the president is so inclined, he can show compassion and reduce the sentence or change some of the charges,” Avenatti said in a phone interview. “I'm not delaying that. He's got a lot of things on his mind right now. Maybe one day he might show me some compassion, or he might not be right. But I think I'd be a fool to count on it. That right now, and, for that reason, I'm trying to do what I need to do and stay close to my family and my faith right now .

A liberal media star in 2018, Avenatti gained notoriety for his aggressive advocacy of Stormy Daniels as they sought to change the non-disclosure agreement she signed regarding her alleged 2006 affair with Trump, which she denied. Daniels was at the center of Trump's conviction in New York earlier this year for falsifying business records to hide cash payments he received from him during the 2016 campaign.

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Called “an existential threat to a Trump presidency” by Stephen Colbert, Avenatti was a regular presence on television in 2018, doing hundreds of interviews on CNN and MSNBC and appearing on Bill Maher, “The View,” the cover of Vogue and more.

But as soon as he rose to the top, his life of crime was exposed, including stealing from his clients, stealing money from Daniels' books, and trying to defraud Nike of millions. Now an inmate at California's Terminal Island jail, the 53-year-old says he's trying to get his life back on track, and now talks about Trump in almost reverent tones.

“The president is a force of nature… He is probably the most effective communicator in modern times, certainly one of the most effective negotiators that has ever been a president in the nation,” he said. “He's a hero. There's no one else I know who could have stood up to what he's been through in the last eight years yet, but he's still coming out on top.”

As someone with multiple miracles, Avenatti said he knows the pressure it puts on an individual and his family.

“As a guy who's been there, I don't know how he did it, but it's admirable as hell,” he said.

Michael Avenatti spoke to Fox News Digital from his prison in California about the 2024 election and whether he expects to be pardoned. (Screenshot/FNC)

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To his credit, Avenatti was floated as a potential Democratic presidential candidate in the 2020 cycle — MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace famously praised a speech he planned to give in Iowa in 2018 — but now he says the party is in bad shape and gone. that he aligns more with the Republicans. He called Trump's decisive victory over Vice President Kamala Harris predictable.

“I'm a member of the Democratic Party right now, but that might change as soon as I get out of prison,” he told Fox News Digital. “I might be a Republican because the Democratic Party today is not the Democratic Party I knew 30 or 40 years ago. I'm a Bill Clinton Democrat and if Bill Clinton ran for president today, he wouldn't be able to. The Democratic Party has become a working class party, and there are very few issues that I identify with the Democratic Party. now.”

Avenatti added that the Democrats did not have the wheels and had a problem with branding, and the former leader of the “Resistance” said that such a move would not be possible to serve the second term of Trump. Democrats are unlikely to be concerned about his vetting, given the attorney general's tarnished reputation.

“I think the Democrats better start thinking about how they can find common ground with him moving forward,” he said. “But this whole idea that we're going to reinvent the Resistance, and we're going to demonize Trump day after day, and we're going to have Trump Derangement Syndrome, those days are gone. It's not going anywhere before, and it's not going anywhere in the coming months.”

President-elect Donald Trump looks on during the UFC 309 event at Madison Square Garden on November 16, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC) (Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC)

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The disgraced lawyer won a legal victory last month when a jury overturned his 14-year sentence for stealing millions from his California clients. The panel found that the sentence was based on a calculation of financial losses greater than what was paid and sent it back to the judge for a re-sentence, according to the Associated Press.

Avenatti said he believes he will receive his revised sentence in the next four to five months and hopes the time will be “dramatically reduced.”

That 14-year sentence included five years he served on separate charges in New York for the Nike and Daniels cases. The appeals panel argued in October that the California sentence should run concurrently with the time Avenatti is serving on other charges.

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Fox News Digital has reached out to a Trump spokesperson for comment.