WASHINGTON _ Paul Manafort asked a judge in Washington to move his trial on money laundering charges to Roanoke, Va., arguing that the pool of potential Washington jurors would be biased against him based on recent media coverage of his conviction on bank- and tax-fraud charges in Alexandria, Va., and his time working for the 2016 campaign of President Donald Trump.
U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson gave Manafort's lawyers until the end of the day Wednesday to file the request for a change in venue but told defense attorney Richard Westling that it would be hard to find a place in the country where news of Manafort's legal entanglements had not been heard.
"Where do you want to go?" Jackson asked Westling at a hearing on Tuesday.
"I don't know that I have the answer to that yet," Westling responded. "It may be that there is no place."
Jackson said the "overwhelming majority" of publicity for Manafort's first trial was national, not local. She assured Westling that, "This jurisdiction has had very high-profile cases before."
Acknowledging his bid was a long shot, Westling said it was important for the motion to be filed in the event of an appeal.
"The nation's attention remains fixed on Manafort," his lawyers said in the filing on Wednesday. Manafort "has become an unwilling player in the larger drama between Mr. Mueller and President Trump."
A federal jury convicted Manafort of eight counts of tax and bank fraud at the conclusion of a three-week trial in the Alexandria. Tense jury deliberations resulted in a mistrial declared by Judge T.S. Ellis III on 10 of 18 counts. Prosecutors have until the end of the day Wednesday to decide whether they want to pursue another trial on those counts.
Jackson said she would close jury selection, which could take as long as two days, to the public because of the size of the courtroom and the "awkward and unpleasant" process of having attorneys and jurors come up to the bench for individual questioning.
She also said she would remove a question about whether jurors voted in the 2016 election from the jury questionnaire.
