By Aaron Miller-
Florida Judge Bruce Reinhart has ruled that the affidavit behind the search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property, with the proposed redactions from the Department of Justice, can be released by noon tomorrow. He says the DoJ met its burden of showing a compelling reason to keep parts sealed.
The ruling comes as good news to Donald Trump, who has always insisted on his innocence. The Department of Justice opposed releasing an unredacted version amid its ongoing investigation.
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Donald Trump took to Truth Social for a multi-part tirade against federal law enforcement, the Democratic Party, and Joe Biden, claiming once again that the raid on his home was nothing but an act of political persecution.
Proclaiming himself “innocent as a person can be”, Mr Trump insisted that “Radical Left Democrat prosecutors” are trying to “circumvent” the Presidential Records Act, which he is accused of violating by removing hundreds of pages of sensitive government documents.
The former U.S president also suggested without any evidence, that Joe Biden also had a hand in the raid.
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Biden has denied receiving any advance warning of the raid on Mr Trump’s Florida property. “None. Zero. Not one single bit,” he told reporters.
The FBI search was part of a probe into the potential mishandling of documents. Mr Trump has denied wrongdoing and insists the classified files that investigators say were found at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach had already been declassified by himself.
The U.S Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart accepted the Justice Department’s request to keep secret the identities of witnesses, law enforcement agents, people who haven’t been charged, grand jury information as well as details about “the investigation’s strategy, direction, scope, sources, and methods.”
The judge gave DOJ until Friday at noon New York time to file the redacted affidavit on the court’s public docket.
Reinhart wrote that the government had “met its burden of showing that its proposed redactions are narrowly tailored to serve the government’s legitimate interest in the integrity of the ongoing investigation” and that they were the “least onerous alternative” to keeping the entire document sealed.
A number of media organizations that had pushed for the release of the affidavit and also asked the judge for a redacted version of a brief DOJ filed offering its legal reasoning for keeping parts of the affidavit secret.
Unverified reports claim that FBI agents found papers “lying in unsecured areas” during the search of Mar-a-Lago – contradicting assurances from Mr Trump’s team that any sensitive documents were kept locked away.
A two-page order from the judge who approved the search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home has ordered the release of a redacted version of the affidavit that FBI agents used for a search warrant.
Trump and his cohort of supporters insist believe there is a secret attempt to thwart his ambitions to rum for office again in 2024.
He faces a number of investigations, including the January 6 insurrection at Capitol Hill when congressmen met to certify the election victory of Joe Biden.
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