What You Need to Know About the Hearing on Whether to Unseal the Affidavit for Mar-a-Lago Search Warrant
A federal judge in West Palm Beach, Florida will hold a hearing today on the arguments for whether to unseal the affidavit that authorized the FBI’s search warrant for former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart, who signed off the search warrant earlier this month, will preside over the hearing which is scheduled to begin at 1:00 p.m. ET. It is unclear, however, whether a decision will be reached today on keeping the affidavit sealed, releasing portions of it, or publishing a redacted version of the whole thing.
Ever since the FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago to account for the classified documents Trump was keeping there, the former president and his allies have been condemning federal law enforcement and calling the search a politicized act of overreach against him. Trump and his team have run through a multitude of defenses and arguments against the search, and the former president has portrayed himself as a political victim while demanding the affidavit’s full release.
While the hearing will touch on arguments that the affidavit should be unsealed as a matter of government accountability, the Department of Justice is expected to argue in favor of keeping the affidavit sealed because of the sensitive nature of the classified documents taken from Mar-a-Lago.
The DOJ filed a motion on Monday, arguing that unsealing the affidavit could compromise an “ongoing criminal investigation.”
“If disclosed, the affidavit would serve as a roadmap to the government’s ongoing investigation, providing specific details about its direction and likely course, in a manner that is highly likely to compromise future investigative steps,” the DOJ filing says. “The fact that this investigation implicates highly classified materials further underscores the need to protect the integrity of the investigation and exacerbates the potential for harm if information is disclosed to the public prematurely or improperly.”
The DOJ filing goes on to say that the investigation pertains to national security, and releasing the affidavit could interfere their efforts to secure the cooperation of interviewed witnesses.
Watch above, via NBC.
