According to court filings filed Friday, Donald Trump’s lawyers consented to the public release of the search warrant enabling the FBI’s seizure of records from his Florida estate. A federal magistrate court in Florida is now preparing to grant the release.
Trump’s agreement comes as Attorney General Merrick Garland said Thursday that the Justice Department had filed a move to unseal the materials after the former president publicly revealed the search of his Mar-a-Lago club earlier this week.
The FBI collected boxes and paperwork on Monday, but no devices, according to sources.
Trump himself declared in a statement late Thursday that he supported the warrant’s publication. On Friday, he said on Truth Social that the papers had been “fully declassified” and that the FBI “didn’t need to’seize anything.’
“They could have had it whenever they wanted without becoming involved in politics or breaking into Mar-a-Lago. It was in safe storage, with an extra lock installed at their request “Trump made a post on Truth Social.
Aerial picture of billionaire Donald Trump’s beachside mansion, Mar-a-Lago.
UNITED STATES – JANUARY 22: Aerial picture of Mar-a-Lago, billionaire Donald Trump’s beachfront resort in Palm Beach, Fla.
The FBI searched Trump’s property on Monday as part of a federal investigation into Trump’s management of presidential documents. The National Archives and Papers Administration said in January that it had collected 15 boxes of presidential records from Mar-a-Lago, some of which included classified national security information, and had requested an investigation by the Justice Department.
According to people familiar with the situation, a federal grand jury issued a subpoena linked to the probe in the spring, and Trump lawyers met with Justice Department officials at Mar-a-Lago later that month. The existence of the subpoena was originally disclosed by the internet news source Just the News.
Garland said on Thursday that the inquiry and subsequent search of Trump’s property were not handled lightly, and that he personally supported the decision to obtain court authority for the search warrant.
According to Garland, the search was subsequently granted by a judge in South Florida “upon the requisite finding of reasonable cause,” and copies of the warrant and a list of goods confiscated by the FB were sent to Trump’s counsel.
According to two people familiar with Trump’s legal strategy, investigators did not deliver the supporting affidavit for the search warrant to Trump’s legal team on Monday. The FBI also demanded that private security cameras at Mar-a-Lago be turned off before executing the order, but Trump’s officials refused, according to the sources.
The Justice Department then requested that the warrant be made public “in light of the former president’s public confirmation of the search, the surrounding circumstances, and the great interest in this subject,” according to the attorney general.
The New York Times and Times Union of Albany, New York, together with the conservative nonprofit Judicial Watch, filed separate motions with the court on Wednesday to gain access to any papers connected to the search warrant, including any supporting affidavits. CBS News sought on Thursday to join the Times’ campaign to make the search warrant and other relevant information public, and was given permission to do so on Friday.
The precise contents of the 15 boxes confiscated by the FBI in January and those collected in Monday’s search of Mar-a-Lago are unknown, and the supporting affidavits, which generally include more detail, will not be provided along with the warrant.
