The founder of a pro-Hillary Clinton super PAC said Monday that he would "absolutely" support Michael Avenatti if he ran for president in 2020.
The anti-Trump lawyer is quietly building up the infrastructure for a Democratic primary run, including recruiting a group of Democratic campaign veterans, fundraisers, and other operatives, Politico reports. One such operative is Adam Parkhomenko, who founded Ready PAC– formerly "Ready for Hillary"–in the lead-up to the 2016 election.
"He’s absolutely the person I’m supporting in the 2020 primary, should he decide to run," Parkhomenko told Politico. "I think he is 90 [percent] to 95 percent leaning toward doing it."
Parkhomenko previously signaled his support when a fellow progressive activist attacked Avenatti on Twitter for using a fundraising link for the Beto O'Rourke campaign that funneled half the money to himself in the fine print. Parkhomenko defended Avenatti, saying the practice was common.
I have about 900 of these. You going to start tweeting them one by one? Didn’t think so. pic.twitter.com/6PkkLhhvsv
— Adam Parkhomenko (@AdamParkhomenko) October 11, 2018
Exactly what’s wrong with what you are doing over there.
— Adam Parkhomenko (@AdamParkhomenko) October 12, 2018
Other former Clintonites who have jumped on the Avenatti train according to Politico include Roger Salazar, the founder of the pro-Clinton, anti-Obama American Leadership Project in 2008, and Amy Wills Gray, who served as treasurer of Ready for Hillary.
Parkhomenko's support is notable given that Clinton and her closest advisors have not entirely ruled out the notion that she might run again in 2020. "It’s somewhere between highly unlikely and zero," Reines told Politico a week ago. "But it’s not zero."
More recently Clinton herself answered "no" when asked if she wanted to run for president, only to immediately follow up, "Well, I'd like to be president."
"I think, hopefully, when we have a Democrat in the Oval Office in January of 2021, there's going to be so much work to be done..." she continued in a podcast interview on Saturday. "The work would be work I feel very well prepared for, having been in the Senate for eight years, having been a diplomat in the State Department. It's just going to be a lot of heavy lifting."
"Will you be doing any of that lifting?" host Kara Swisher asked.
"I have no idea," Clinton responded, "but I'm not going to even think about that until we get through this November 6 election."