Paul Manafort wants his upcoming trial moved out of Washington, DC, claiming he won’t get a fair trial due to the “unrelenting news coverage” – including one of President Trump’s tweets – about his prosecution.
Lawyers for President Trump’s former campaign manager filed a motion on Wednesday requesting a change of venue to Roanoke, Virginia ahead of the start of his second trial next month.
“While federal courts often address issues of pretrial publicity in high-profile cases, it is difficult to conceive of a matter that has received media attention of the same magnitude as the prosecution of Mr. Manafort,” they wrote to DC federal Judge Amy Berman Jackson.
The defense went on to whine about how Manafort, 69, has gotten caught in the middle of the “showdown” between Trump and Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who charged Manafort as a result of his probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
“Mr. Manafort as the first person tried and convicted by the Special Counsel’s Office, has become an unwilling player in the larger drama between Mr. Mueller and President Trump,” the lawyers wrote.
Manafort’s attorneys argued they’ll face an uphill battle picking a fair and impartial jury in DC, where “coverage has been most intense.”
“Roanoke represents a venue where the media coverage is substantially less than in the D.C. metropolitan area,” the lawyers said.
They also blamed Trump for contributing to the “negative” pre-trial publicity with a tweet earlier this summer, when Manafort had his $10 million bond revoked and was tossed in jail on fresh charges.
“Wow, what a tough sentence for Paul Manafort, who has represented Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole and many other top political people and campaigns,” Trump tweeted on June 15. “Didn’t know Manafort was the head of the Mob. What about Comey and Crooked Hillary and all of the others? Very unfair!”
But, as lawyers for the long-time Republican operative noted in their motion, the president “incorrectly suggest[ed] that Mr. Manafort had been sentenced for committing a crime.”
Last month, Manafort made a similar request to move his trial from a courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia to Roanoke, citing pretrial news coverage and claiming potential jurors in Alexandria were more likely to have been Hillary Clinton supporters.
A judge denied the request – and Manafort was convicted by a jury on 10 of 18 counts for hiding tens of millions of dollars from the IRS in offshore bank accounts.
On Tuesday, Jackson delayed opening arguments in the DC trial until Sept. 24 but said jury selection would begin Sept. 17.
Manafort faces seven more counts, including failing to register as a foreign agent, money laundering and conspiracy related to consulting work he did for pro-Russian Ukranian President Viktor Yanukovych.
