Rex Murphy: Anti-Trump press has less credibility than Jussie Smollett right now

Remember Michael Avenatti? He’s the lawyer (I’m not being kind — I may need “weasel” further down the column) who unleashed the outrageous allegations against Judge Brett Kavanaugh, the Donald Trump nominee for the Supreme Court, claiming Kavanaugh organized and participated in “gang rapes” of Avenatti’s client, Julie Swetnick. The charges were as preposterous as they were savage. Of course the whole buzzing hive of the dementedly anti-Trump press not only received those charges, and gave them air and headline, but because the allegations gave fresh oxygen to their calumnies against Trump, they — the stalwart guardians of the First Amendment, the press — upgraded Avenatti in a flash to Truth-teller, warrior-priest against the dark lord of the Trump Tower.