Mueller worried 'widespread media attention' may have biased jurors

'Such publicity increases the possibility that jurors will form biases,' Mueller's team wrote in a filing.

Special counsel Robert Mueller's team wants to use a written questionnaire to gauge whether “widespread media attention” has biased potential jurors for former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s upcoming criminal trial.

The lead Russia investigator filed an eight-page motion on Thursday raising concerns about how both his overall probe into Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Moscow election meddling, as well as the Manafort case specifically, had generated extensive media coverage — not all of it correct — that could taint the jury pool. Manafort is facing a series of financial fraud, tax and lobbying charges in cases spiraling out of Mueller’s broader probe.

“The reporting, at times inaccurately, comments on the nature of the evidence collected in the case or activities of the parties,” Andrew Weissmann, one of Mueller’s lead prosecutors, wrote, noting it had found thousands of references to the investigation in its search of newspaper, television and radio coverage.

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https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/21/paul-manafort-jury-selection-mueller-661648