The Department of Justice must respond to motions to unseal the warrant behind the FBI raid of former President Donald Trump’s home in Mar-a-Lago, the magistrate judge who approved the unprecedented search ordered Thursday.
Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart, who is believed to have signed the still-sealed FBI warrant approving the bureau’s Trump raid, said the DOJ must now “file a Response to the Motion to Unseal” following efforts by Albany-based news outlet the Times Union and the conservative advocacy group Judicial Watch requesting the DOJ make the warrant public.
Reinhart said the DOJ’s response may be filed “ex parte and under seal as necessary to avoid disclosing matters already under seal,” meaning that the full response may be secret but that “the Government shall file a redacted Response in the public record” too.
PRESSURE BUILDS ON TRUMP AND BIDEN TO RELEASE MAR-A-LAGO SEARCH WARRANT
The Times Union lawyer wrote that FBI agents “applied for and received a search warrant in connection with an investigation that involved the residence of Donald J. Trump in Palm Beach” and that “I am filing this request seeking the unsealing request of these court records.”
Judicial Watch wrote that it is “investigating the potential politicization” of the FBI and the DOJ and whether they are “abusing their law enforcement powers to harass a likely future political opponent of President Biden” and that “if the Court were to unseal the materials, Judicial Watch would obtain the materials, analyze them, and make them available to the public.”
Reinhart said that the “Government may file a consolidated Response to all Motions to Seal” and that the DOJ will have until Monday to respond.
The magistrate judge’s name came under considerable scrutiny Tuesday after multiple news outlets reported that he was the one who signed off on the FBI’s raid of Mar-a-Lago. In particular, his connection to notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was highlighted.
Reinhart left his job as an assistant U.S. attorney on Jan. 1, 2008. The next day, he began representing some of Epstein’s employees. He was accused in a lawsuit filed by two of Epstein’s victims of leaving the DOJ to provide Epstein inside information, allegations Reinhart denied, the Miami Herald reported in 2018.
The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida removed Reinhart’s page from its website on Tuesday afternoon after his connection to Epstein went viral on social media.
“Access denied,” Reinhart’s page now reads. “You are not authorized to access this page.”
Reinhart was appointed by district judges to his current position as a magistrate judge in 2018.
The judge recused himself from a civil lawsuit involving Trump and his 2016 presidential opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Trump sued Clinton, the Democratic National Committee, and numerous political entities and figures in March for promoting stories that alleged Trump was colluding with Russia during the 2016 election.
Reinhart recused himself from the case on June 22, citing a portion of the U.S. code that requires any magistrate judges to disqualify themselves if they have a “personal bias or prejudice concerning a party, or personal knowledge of disputed evidentiary facts concerning the proceeding.”
Reinhart did not specify in his recusal if the party he had a personal bias or prejudice toward was Trump, Clinton, or one or more of the dozens of other defendants in the lawsuit.
TRUMP CALLS MAR-A-LAGO RAID A ‘SURPRISE ATTACK’
The Monday search by the FBI was reportedly related to boxes of materials Trump brought back with him to his Florida resort after leaving office. The National Archives said some presidential records in 15 boxes obtained from Mar-a-Lago earlier this year included materials marked as classified.
More than two days after the raid, the DOJ and the FBI have remained tight-lipped about the purpose and justification behind it, repeatedly declining to comment. The search warrant and FBI affidavit for the raid remain sealed.
President Joe Biden also didn’t respond to questions from reporters Tuesday when asked what Attorney General Merrick Garland had told him about the raid. Biden officials have said the White House was not informed about it beforehand. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to say whether Garland personally signed off on it.
Senior members of the Republican Party said they believe a double standard is on display with the DOJ’s handling of its investigation into Hunter Biden when compared to the Trump raid.
A host of congressional Republicans have condemned the raid and called on Garland, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and the National Archives to provide answers about the search at Mar-a-Lago.
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Trump called the raid “a surprise attack, POLITICS, and all the while our Country is going to HELL!” in a post on his Truth Social account on Wednesday.
