The magistrate judge who signed the FBI search warrant for former President Donald Trump’s home ordered the Justice Department to release the redacted version of the affidavit justifying the unprecedented raid of Mar-a-Lago publicly.
The Justice Department filed its proposed redactions to the Trump raid affidavit under seal Thursday morning, and Florida Judge Bruce Reinhart ruled Thursday afternoon that the Justice Department must now file that redacted affidavit on the public docket by noon Friday. The judge also indicated he agreed with DOJ’s decision to black out large swaths of the affidavit.
“I find that the Government has met its burden of showing a compelling reason/good cause to seal portions of the Affidavit because disclosure would reveal (1) the identities of witnesses, law enforcement agents, and uncharged parties, (2) the investigation’s strategy, direction, scope, sources, and methods, and (3) grand jury information,” the judge also ruled, adding, “I further find that the Government has met its burden of showing that its proposed redactions are narrowly tailored to serve the Government’s legitimate interest in the integrity of the ongoing investigation and are the least onerous alternative to sealing the entire Affidavit.”
Last week, the DOJ announced its opposition to the release of the underlying justification for its search, just days after it agreed to unseal the FBI warrant for the search of Trump’s Florida resort.
FBI AGENTS BEHIND CONTROVERSIAL HUNTER BIDEN BRIEFING IN 2020 ORDERED TO TALK
“There remain compelling reasons, including to protect the integrity of an ongoing law enforcement investigation that implicates national security, that support keeping the affidavit sealed,” DOJ lawyers declared last week.
“The government has carefully considered whether the affidavit can be released subject to redactions,” the DOJ said. “The redactions necessary to mitigate harms to the integrity of the investigation would be so extensive as to render the remaining unsealed text devoid of meaningful content, and the release of such a redacted version would not serve any public interest.”
Trump has publicly called for the affidavit to be released to the public in full.
“The Justice Department and FBI are ‘leaking’ at levels never seen before — and I did nothing wrong!!!” Trump said on his Truth Social account on Thursday.
The unsealed search warrant application cover sheet provided more details on what the Justice Department was looking for in the raid.
The records show Trump was being investigated under 18 U.S.C. 793, part of the Espionage Act, and said it was related to “willful retention of national defense information.” The unsealed cover sheet pointed to 18 U.S.C. 2071, specifically the “concealment or removal of government records,” as well as 18 U.S.C. 1519, specifically related to “obstruction of federal investigation.”
Trump filed a motion on Monday seeking an order from a judge to appoint a special master and stop the Justice Department from further review of the information it had seized from his resort in Florida until the special master is appointed. Trump also asked the judge to require the DOJ to provide a more detailed receipt for the property it had seized from him and to order federal investigators to return all items to him that had been taken but were outside the search warrant’s scope.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
DOJ spokesman Anthony Coley said the Mar-a-Lago search warrant “was authorized by a federal court” and that the Justice Department will respond in court.
The items seized by the FBI earlier this month reportedly included “various classified/[top secret]/[sensitive compartmented information] documents,” four “miscellaneous top secret documents,” three “miscellaneous secret documents,” two “miscellaneous confidential documents,” and one “confidential document.”
Trump and his allies have claimed he declassified the records, with the former president contending he had a “standing order” throughout his presidency that “documents removed from the Oval Office and taken to the residence were deemed to be declassified the moment he removed them.” Several former Trump administration officials have cast doubt on that notion.
