CNN is being accused of attempting to intimidate the Paul Manafort jury after the far-left cable channel (and six other anti-Trump outlets) requested the jurors’ names and home addresses.
Manafort, who worked for a short time as President Trump’s campaign chairman during the 2016 presidential election, has been charged by special counsel Robert Mueller with various financial crimes, none of which have anything to do with Trump or the campaign.
Manafort’s fate now sits with the jury, and after two days of deliberations, anti-Trump media outlets like CNN are becoming concerned Manafort could be acquitted, which would be a major blow to Mueller’s credibility and his ability to remove Trump from office — an outcome the establishment media are desperate to orchestrate.
And so, on Thursday, CNN, along with six other far-left media outlets (the Washington Post, BuzzFeed, Politico, the New York Times, NBC, and the AP) sued for the release of the names and home addresses of all of the Manafort jurors, a move that is both disturbing and almost unprecedented.
As Bre Payton at the Federalist points out, “Publicly outing the names and home addresses of jurors is considered ethically questionable, as outlined in this guidance sheet on the topic from the Reporter’s Committee for Freedom of the Press.”
To begin with, it is seen as unseemly to thrust jurors into the spotlight against their will when they are not volunteering for publicity; they are chosen.
What many see here, and not without precedent, is yet another attempt by the media, most especially CNN, to bully and intimidate private, everyday citizens into convicting Manafort.