The judge who signed the warrant that allowed the FBI to ransack Donald Trump’s Florida residence has ruled on the release of several supporting documents, including the affidavit used for justification.
On Thursday Judge Bruce Reinhardt issued an order for the release the sealing order and motion to seal as well the criminal cover sheets. A portion of the affidavit also will be released. However, the government will still have one week to file proposed redactions.
BREAKING.🚨
Judge Bruce Reinhart will unseal documents used for FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago:
– sealing order
– motion to seal
– criminal cover sheet
These documents will all be extensively redacted. The Search warrant affidavit ruling is yet to be made.— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) August 18, 2022
Judge Reinhart stated that the entirety of the affidavit must not be sealed and granted the government one week to file proposed redactions. That deadline expires on August 25th, at noon.
— Jake Gibson (@JakeBGibson) August 18, 2022
Here’s the actual order from the judge which reads as very skeptical of the government’s attempts to keep things under wraps.
Trump case: trying to keep the search affidavit sealed isn’t going well for the government.
Judge says: “I find that on the present record the Government has not met its burden of showing that the entire affidavit should remain sealed.”
— Marina Medvin 🇺🇸 (@MarinaMedvin) August 18, 2022
Now the question is how much information we’ll learn from these documents once they are released. I suspect the government’s redactions will be extensive and overwrought, to the point of making the release pointless. Judge Reinhardt must stop attempts to conceal or redact anything from the public. To this point, he has done more to provide for transparency than many thought he would (including myself), so perhaps the DOJ won’t be allowed to spill black ink everywhere as it usually does. Every redaction will have to be justified in court, and hopefully, the generic “this could harm our investigation” line won’t be good enough.
Although the government has precedent in keeping the affidavit secret, judges are more inclined to agree to it. The Mar-a-Lago raid was unique and it is clear that there were leaks. Therefore, normal procedures seem hollow. This isn’t a normal investigation. It’s a politicized operation that is clearly using targeted leaks from inside the DOJ/FBI to try to harm a political opponent of the current president. It is not common for such circumstances to call for extraordinary measures. Judge Reinhardt may be able to recognize it or part of the cover up. That’s a decision he’ll have to make.
I still suspect the justification for the raid was weak, and that’s why the government is fighting so hard to not have to reveal what was behind it. It was a loose-for-all warrant that allowed the FBI to take whatever it desired. Focused investigations, which is what AG Merrick Garland claimed this is, aren’t conducted that way. We’ll learn a lot more soon enough, but the mere fact that any part of the affidavit is going to be released is a big win. That’s very, very unusual.
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