JUST IN: Trump Calls for ‘Immediate Release of Completely Unredacted Affidavit’ the DOJ Objects to Unsealing
Former President Donald Trump has called for the immediate release of the “completely unredacted affidavit” that led to the Mar-a-Lago search warrant. The Department of Justice, however, has asked a judge to keep the affidavit sealed, citing a need to protect the investigation and witnesses.
The affidavit contains the government’s reasoning for searching Mar-a-Lago where numerous top secret documents were removed. In a court filing submitted yesterday, federal prosecutors argued that if the specifics revealed in the affidavit were to be publicly disclosed, it would serve as a road map to the government’s ongoing criminal investigation, the specific details of which are still unknown.
In addition, the DOJ explained how information in the affidavit about witnesses is particularly sensitive, given the high-profile nature of the matter, and could affect their willingness to cooperate. It could chill future cooperation and other high-profile investigations.
Trump has actively played the part of the victim in this story, a narrative that he continued to promote in a late TruthSocial post in which he continued to share baseless lies about the 2020 election. Trump wrote:
There is no way to justify the unannounced RAID of Mar-a-Lago, the home of the 45th President of the United States (who got more votes, by far, than any sitting President in the history of our Country!), by a very large number of gun toting FBI Agents, and the Department of “Justice” but, in the interest of TRANSPARENCY, I call for the immediate release of the completely Unredacted Affidavit pertaining to this horrible and shocking BREAK-IN. Also, the Judge on this case should recuse!
The DOJ court filing makes evident that there are “compelling reasons” that implicate national security that support keeping the affidavit sealed. The most salient portion of the 13-page filing reads:
Those docketed items, which had already been provided to the former President’s counsel upon execution of the warrant, have now appropriately been made public. The affidavit supporting the search warrant presents a very different set of considerations. There remain compelling reasons, including to protect the integrity of an ongoing law enforcement investigation that implicates national security, that support keeping the affidavit sealed. 1 The government does not object to unsealing other materials filed in connection the search warrant whose unsealing would not jeopardize the integrity of this national security investigation, subject to minor redactions to protect government personnel, namely: cover sheets associated with the search warrant application, Docket Entry (“D.E.”) 1; the government’s motion to seal, D.E. 2; and the Court’s sealing order, D.E. 3. The government’s proposed redactions to those documents have been filed under seal as D.E. 57, and the government now asks the Court to unseal the materials contained in that filing
Trump claims that the searching of his Mar-a-Lago home is an unprecedented move from the federal government toward a former Commander in Chief, but that overlooks the fact that the possession of apparently purloined classified documents by a former president is also unprecedented, and that the DOJ was simply retrieving documents over concerns of national security.
We now also know that the DOJ has an ongoing criminal investigation in which the Mar-a-Lago search warrant played a part. Trump’s call for releasing the affidavit, and therefore undermining a criminal investigation perhaps into his own actions, appears to reveal a self-serving purpose for destroying the integrity of the ongoing law enforcement effort to investigate his role.
