The U.S. Justice Department is expected to make public today a redacted version of the affidavit that led to the unprecedented FBI raid of former president Donald Trump’s Florida estate Mar-a-Lago, Reuters reports.
The move could help shed more light on the evidence that led to this extraordinary search.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart on Thursday ordered the redacted document to be released by noon on Friday, a ruling that came just hours after a Justice Department spokesman confirmed that prosecutors had submitted a sealed copy of the affidavit with proposed redactions for the judge’s review.
Reinhart approved the warrant that preceded the FBI search of the Trump residence. He then ordered a partial release of the affidavit despite there being objections from the prosecution, who want to keep it sealed in order to protect the integrity of the ongoing investigation.
It is very uncommon for affidavits to be released publicly before someone is charged with a crime.
The affidavit is a sworn statement outlining the evidence that gave the department probable cause to seek a search warrant.
Reinhart said the Justice Department had valid reasons to keep some of the document secret, including the need to protect witness identities as well as identities of federal agents. He said another reason was so that the government’s investigation, strategy, and material could also be protected.
The FBI in its court-approved search at Mar-a-Lago carried away more than 20 boxes containing 11 sets of classified government records, some of which were labeled “top secret.”
The search was part of a federal investigation into whether Trump illegally removed and kept documents from the White House when he left office in January 2021 and whether he tried to obstruct the government’s investigation.
The documents seized were in addition to 700 pages worth of classified records the U.S. National Archives recovered from the same Florida residence in January. Some of these entailed Special Access Program materials, which is a reference to security protocols for the nation’s most closely-held secrets.
After Trump accused the FBI of political retribution against him, Attorney General Merrick Garland made the unusual decision to confirm the existence of the department’s investigation and asked a court to unseal large portions of the search warrant and property receipt listing the seized items.
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