A federal judge on Monday formally affirmed last week’s decision rejecting the government’s request to completely seal the search warrant affidavit of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate and set a deadline of Thursday at noon for the government to provide a redacted version of the document.
In a court filing, Magistrate Judge Brice Reinhart wrote that the government has not yet demonstrated the need to justify fully sealing the document, “particularly given the intense public and historical interest in an unprecedented search of a former President’s residence.”
The Justice Department has said that it is staunchly opposed to releasing the document, saying that it could compromise its investigation. Jay Bratt, the chief of the Justice Department’s counterintelligence and export control section, said that the investigation is “still in its early stages” and unsealing the document would provide a “road map” of its probe — potentially exposing next steps by investigators, chilling possible witnesses and threatening the safety of those who have already testified.
Multiple groups, including several news organizations, have pushed for the release of the document, citing public interest.
Reinhart acknowledged the possibility that the redactions could be “so extensive that they will result in a meaningless disclosure,” and left open the possibility that he might “ultimately reach that conclusion after hearing further from the Government.”
The judge also wrote in his order that the government “met its burden of showing good cause/a compelling interest that overrides any public interest in unsealing the full contents of the Affidavit.”
Reinhart said that he was confident in his ruling to authorize the search warrant, writing that the court issued it “after finding probable cause that evidence of multiple federal crimes would be found at the premises.”
“Having carefully reviewed the Affidavit before signing the Warrant, I was — and am — satisfied that the facts sworn by the affiant are reliable," he wrote.
The search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club earlier this month to retrieve documents from his White House years was an unprecedented law enforcement action against a former president who is widely expected to run for office once again. Officials have not revealed exactly what was contained in the boxes, but the FBI has said it recovered 11 sets of classified records, including some marked “sensitive compartmented information,” a special category meant to protect secrets that could cause “exceptionally grave” damage to U.S. interests if revealed publicly.
David Weinstein, a former assistant U.S. Attorney, emphasized the "unprecedented" nature of the search in an interview with Spectrum News last week.
"The fact that we're now looking at within a two week time period, a search warrant that was filed under seal along with an affidavit and that we've already seen the warrant itself is unprecedented," Weinstein said.
Weinstein said it would be unusual for the Justice Department to make the affidavit public in a case where no criminal charges have been filed.
"Transparency and having everybody aware of all the fact will keep anybody from speculating why the search was conducted, what evidence they had to believe that these documents or anything else were located at Mar a Lago, but you have to let the system itself proceed," Weinstein said.
"These allegations as to it being a witch hunt ... is just causing more strife and more accusations to be made and, quite frankly, drawing some danger to law enforcement," he added.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.