Attorneys for former Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chair, want a judge to bar any mention of Manafort’s connections to the president at his trial in Virginia.
Manafort’s lawyers filed their motion on Friday in federal court in Alexandria, ahead of the trial in July. Manafort is charged with hiding from the Internal Revenue Service tens of millions of dollars he earned advising pro-Russia politicians in Ukraine.
He faces a separate indictment in Washington. Manafort is jailed while he awaits trial after the judge in the DC case decided to revoke his bail after prosecutors alleged he was engaging in witness tampering.
A pretrial hearing in the Alexandria case is scheduled for 29 June. On Friday, Manafort’s lawyers argued that because their client’s alleged crimes occurred before he ever served on Donald Trump’s campaign, any mention of connections to Trump were irrelevant.
Lawyers Kevin Downing, Thomas Zehnle and Jay Nanvati wrote: “[T]here is a very real risk that the jurors in this case – most of whom likely have strong views about President Trump, or have likely formed strong opinions as to the well-publicized allegations that the campaign colluded with Russian officials – will be unable to separate their opinions and beliefs about those matters from the tax and bank fraud matters to be tried before them in this case.”
The judge, TS Ellis III, questioned prosecutors sharply at a hearing last month about whether Manafort’s alleged misconduct was sufficiently connected to special counsel Robert Mueller’s mandate to investigate the Trump campaign.
The judge’s comments came in a hearing where defense lawyers argued that the case should be tossed out because they believe Mueller’s mandate is strictly limited to investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election and alleged coordination with Trump associates.
Ellis has not ruled on the motion to dismiss, but he seemed sympathetic to the defense at the earlier hearing. He stated: “I don’t see what relationship this indictment has with what the special counsel is investigating.”
The judge in Washington has rejected similar arguments by Manafort’s team.