Paul Manafort’s defense argues that an obstacle to getting a fair trial in northern Virginia is that individuals who could be part of the jury pool are likely to have voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. | Mark Wilson/Getty Images Manafort proposes delay and move for Virginia trial Defense wants trial set for July moved to Roanoke and put off until after D.C. trial set for September.

Lawyers for President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort have asked that his trial on bank and tax fraud charges set to open later this month in Alexandria, Virginia, be moved to Roanoke and put off until after another trial Manafort faces later this year in Washington.

In requesting the move and the delay, Manafort's attorneys cited intense negative publicity surrounding his prosecution by special counsel Robert Mueller.


"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," defense attorneys wrote in a Friday afternoon court filing. "The individuals residing in the [Alexandria] division are far more likely to have closely followed the developments and news coverage in the Manafort case in light of the division’s close connection with the nation’s capital. ... Mr. Manafort submits that a fair trial will be impossible without a change of venue to Roanoke, Virginia."

The defense's argument for delay references the same concerns about publicity, but also that the recent jailing of Manafort over alleged witness tampering has hampered preparation for the trial set to begin July 25.

"Mr. Manafort has been subject to negative press since the leaking of the Special Counsel’s investigation more than a year ago; however, the recent bail revocation and his subsequent detention has exacerbated the situation. Time is needed to allow passions to cool and to permit the seating of an impartial jury," Manafort's defense team wrote.

Until last month, Manafort had been under house arrest at his Alexandria condo as he awaited trial there and in a separate case in Washington that includes charges of money laundering and failing to register as a foreign agent in connection with Ukraine-related lobbying. The Washington case is currently set for trial on Sept. 17.

On June 15, the judge in the Washington case, Amy Berman Jackson, revoked Manafort's release after he was hit with new charges of witness tampering. Manafort was sent to the Northern Neck Regional Jail in Warsaw, Virginia, about a two-hour drive south of Washington.

In a filing Friday evening, Manafort's lawyers Kevin Downing, Thomas Zehnle and Jay Nanavati complained that their client's jailing at such a distance from Washington has impaired their ability to prepare for a trial that is less than three weeks away.

"Mr. Manafort’s current detention has made meetings with his attorneys to prepare his defense far more infrequent and enormously time-consuming compared to when he remained on house arrest and subject to GPS monitoring in Alexandria, Virginia, pursuant to this Court’s release order," the defense wrote. "In fact, prior to the action taken in the D.C. Case, Mr. Manafort was having meetings with his attorneys at their law offices multiple times per week, for many hours at a time, to review the voluminous documents produced by the Special Counsel and to assist in the preparation of his defense."

In their effort to get the Alexandria trial moved elsewhere, Manafort's defense argued that one obstacle to getting a fair trial in northern Virginia is that individuals who could be part of the jury pool are likely to be hostile to Manafort because they voted in favor of Trump's opponent in the 2016 election, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

"This may be the rare case where a juror’s predisposition may directly tie to their vote in the last presidential election. It is not a stretch to expect that voters who supported Secretary Clinton would be predisposed against Mr. Manafort or that voters who supported President Trump would be less inclined toward the Special Counsel," Manafort's team wrote. "Notably, however, voters in the Alexandria Division voted 2-to-1 in favor of Secretary Clinton (66% Clinton; 34% Trump). This split is more balanced in other places in Roanoke, Virginia, located in the Western District of Virginia."

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A spokesman for Mueller's office declined to comment on the defense's request to move and delay the Virginia trial. There was no immediate response to a request for comment on the delay proposal.

At a hearing last Friday in Alexandria, U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis III informed the defense team that he was not inclined to hold a hearing on what the defense contends are improper leaks by the government of grand jury information and other investigative details in advance of the trial set to begin July 25.

However, the judge said he would consider a motion for change of venue over the publicity, if defense lawyers were able to marshal good evidence to support it and filed it by Friday. Ellis mentioned Roanoke or Richmond as possibilities for sites of the trial, although it was not clear how seriously he was considering the idea of a shift in the location of the trial.

Motions to change venue in a case are typically supported by public opinion polling showing that potential jurors in one area have been poisoned in some way against the defendant. Manafort's motion lacks such evidence, but argues that Washington-area jurors are more likely to hold such views because they consume more media coverage and the coverage has been predominantly negative.

"Nowhere in the country is the bias against Mr. Manafort more apparent than here in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area," defense lawyers wrote. "The phrase 'inside-the-beltway' was coined to capture the area’s preoccupation with all things political. ... Roanoke represents a venue where the media coverage is substantially less than in the D.C. metropolitan area."

The defense motion contains a series of facts and figures suggesting that media intensity and consumption is greater in Washington than in Roanoke, located about 200 miles to the southwest. Among other observations, defense attorneys noted that 38 percent of Roanoke homes lack access to broadband internet versus 3 percent in northern Virginia.

The filing from Manafort's lawyers also provided one of the first hints of public disagreement between the defense team and Trump, arguing that one of the president's tweets contributed to the flood of inaccurate information turning public opinion against Manafort.

Manafort's defense noted that when the judge in his Washington case ordered Manafort jailed last month over charges that he tampered with witnesses, Trump took to Twitter to decry the move as a "tough sentence" for Manafort. "Didn’t know Manafort was the head of the Mob. What about Comey and Crooked Hillary and all of the others? Very unfair!" the president added.

The defense faulted Trump's reaction for "incorrectly suggesting that Mr. Manafort had been sentenced for committing a crime," when the issue was simply him being remanded into custody to await trial.