On Thursday, Americans took a step closer to understanding the circumstances behind the FBI raid on Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
Federal officials used the affidavit to secure a warrant to search the former president’s opulent Florida mansion, and the Department of Justice (DOJ) fulfilled its deadline of 12 p.m. on August 25 to submit recommended redactions to the document.
Now, US Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart is under intense scrutiny as he decides whether to release the document with the DOJ’s redactions or not.
In the early hours of Monday, August 8, federal officials conducted a raid at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate as part of a probe into the former president’s handling of sensitive information.
A politicised cat-and-mouse game has broken out between Republican Trump loyalists who accuse President Biden of politicising the DOJ and officials who insist they are acting impartially and who are pleading with the GOP to dial it down.
Attorney General Merrick Garland said that he personally authorised detectives to pursue a search warrant, which resulted in the raid. This added fuel to the flames.
The whole, undisclosed affidavit that was used to get the warrant is now being demanded by Trump and his friends.
The whole document would provide a potentially explosive account of why investigators asked for a warrant to search Mar-a-Lago, as well as significant information about what the government knew or thought about Trump at what time.
The federal judge that issued the order was petitioned by a number of significant news organisations, including the New York Times and NBC News, to also disclose the affidavit.
The DOJ, however, has adamantly opposed making any portion of the document public out of worry that doing so may fatally undermine the prosecution’s investigation at a crucial stage.
Given the abundance of sensitive and revealing information affidavits often include, it is very uncommon for them to be made public prior to the government filing charges.
However, federal magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart supported the media and allowed DOJ investigators until Thursday at noon to submit their suggested redactions to the document.
In a court filing on Monday, Reinhart reaffirmed his support for its public disclosure while also seeking to dampen anticipations for what would be disclosed.
Given the ‘great public and historical interest in an unusual search of a former President’s house,’ the court said that the government had failed to make a convincing case for why it should be kept secret.
He acknowledged that he thought the partial redactions would be so wide as to render the disclosure worthless, but added, “I may eventually reach that decision after hearing more from the Government.”
The judge made it seem as if he thought that publishing the whole affidavit may result in harassment and intimidation of those who were discovered to be involved.