Five news organizations are requesting that court documents in former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s criminal case be unsealed.
Arguing that knowledge of the case’s specifics is in the public interest and that those involved in this case deserve less privacy than ordinary citizens due to their high-profile and public roles, the Associated Press, Politico, The New York Times, The Washington Post and CNN have joined forces to obtain the documents.
“Under the common law, courts balance the public’s right to information about the workings of the criminal justice system against the legitimate countervailing interests of the government; here, that balance tips decisively in favor of the public,” the memo, submitted Wednesday, reads.
According to CNN, this motion marks the first time that people outside of the government who are not defendants on trial have requested that documents related to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Trump-Russia probe be unsealed.
