Commenting that it was “very important” to preserve public confidence in the ongoing investigations into Donald Trump, federal magistrate judge Bruce Reinhart ordered the Department of Justice to submit a redacted version of the affidavit used to obtain the search warrant for Trump’s Mar-a-Lago boarding house and supper club by next Thursday, the New York Times reports.
Saying “This is going to be a considered, careful process,” Reinhart noted that he would review the redactions when they are submitted to see if they are appropriate, but he did not specify a time or date when the affidavit would be released.
The affidavit was used to secure a search and seizure warrant for Trump’s property, which was executed August 8th and found boxes of government documents, including some with Top Secret and TS/SCI classifications, in a lightly secured storage room in the basement of the supper club. The search warrant was the first one to ever be executed on the home of a former president.
Conservatives and Trump supporters were hoping that the judge would reject the need for redactions in the document, believing that an unredacted version would allow their apologists to find minor points which they could use as talking points to dismiss the need for an FBI search of the property.
However, the search warrant was issued after Mar-a-Lago lawyers admitted to federal officials that there were still classified documents on site; after a Trump attorney signed a false statement declaring no more documents were at the property; and after federal officials tried to get Trump to voluntarily turn over the documents via a subpoena.
The Justice Department argued against releasing the affidavit, sworn testimony given by a law enforcement official to the court to justify issuing the warrant, because it contains information on an ongoing investigation into Donald Trump and others regarding Donald Trump’s possession, lies and obstruction in returning the documents to the National Archive.
The Trump camp believes an unredacted version of the affidavit would disclose the name of a person on the inside of Trump’s operation who reportedly told federal officials about the cache of classified documents and the lax security around them, which may have prompted the seizure by federal agents.