8/30/2018

LEGAL/PAUL MANAFORT/ROBERT MUELLER/TRUMP PEOPLE: “The 12 jurors who found Paul Manafort guilty of eight crimes had little knowledge of the case before the trial began. But several of the people called for jury duty for Manafort’s trial in Virginia last month did have opinions about the case before they reported to court, according to a newly unsealed transcript from when the lawyers and judge first determined the jury. The transcript made public Wednesday [8-29-18] offers a new window into how potential jurors felt about special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and Manafort, President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman. The jury pool of about 65 people pulled from the densely populated DC metro area in Virginia and from the more rural counties around Arlington and Alexandria, Virginia. As might be expected, many in the pool had connections to the federal government or politics…Manafort heads to his second criminal trial in under a month. The judge on that case said she expects the jury selection to take longer and be more difficult than the Virginia proceeding, because of the amount of media attention the case received less than a month earlier and Washington residents’ propensity to follow the news and politics.”

Katelyn Polantz, “Paul Manafort jury pool was full of political opinions,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, August 30, 2018 3:38 pm