Lawyers for US President Donald Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort filed a request to change venues for his second trial in Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller's probe, court documents filed on Wednesday.
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 29th August, 2018) Lawyers for US President Donald Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort filed a request to change venues for his second trial in Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller's probe, court documents filed on Wednesday.
"Defendant Manafort respectfully requests that the court transfer his case from the District of Columbia to Roanoke, Virginia for trial," the document said.
Manafort's lawyers pointed to the highly publicized nature of the trial as well as their defendant's constitutional right to an impartial jury.
"Nowhere in the country is the bias against Mr. Manafort more apparent than here in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area," the motion read.
Manafort will be facing charges of money laundering, failing to register as a foreign agent, and witness tampering in the trial, which is scheduled to start on September 24.
Last week, a jury in a Federal court in Alexandria, Virginia found Manafort guilty on eight counts, including bank fraud and tax evasion. The court declared a mistrial on ten other counts.
Trump last week said that he felt bad for Manafort and his family and pointed out that the verdict had nothing to do with the campaign's alleged collusion with Russia. However, Mueller brought charges against Manafort as part of the probe into Russia's role in the 2016 US presidential election.
Moscow has refuted all allegations of meddling in the November 8 election and of colluding with Trump associates in order to help the Republican candidate win the race.
