Washington 27 August : A US judge has ordered the Department of Justice (DOJ) to release a redacted copy of the affidavit used in order to obtain a search warrant for the former residence of President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
“I believe the government has satisfied its obligation of providing a compelling reason/good justification to seal certain portions of the affidavit” Magistrate Judge of the Southern District of Florida Bruce Reinhart wrote in the latest court ruling on Thursday.
Reinhart provided the DOJ until Friday at noon to file in the public docket an amended version of the affidavit.
It was unclear if the Department would file an appeal.
Reinhart made the decision just hours after the DOJ announced that it had submitted its proposed redactions to the affidavit.
Multiple US media organizations have asked Reinhart to open the affidavit in the wake of the public release of the warrant Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents executed to search the estate in Palm Beach earlier this month.
The DOJ has been against the releasing of the affidavit, saying that it could weaken “an ongoing investigation by law enforcement that involves national security”.
The media outlets have argued that the substantial public interest in the affidavit warrants disclosure at least a small portion of it.
Trump and a lot of Republicans have criticized what they described as a “raid” in Mar-a-Lago and repeatedly screamed at the FBI and the DOJ.
For the first time President Joe Biden stated on Wednesday he was given “zero” prior notice prior to the search began.
The FBI operation on Mar-a-Lago was part of the DOJ’s investigation into whether Trump had mishandled classified documents.
The warrant that was not sealed included three criminal charges that could be committed: concealment or destruction of federal records destruction or alteration of records in an investigation of the federal government and the transmission of information about defense.
The “receipt for property” comprised 33 seized items which included 11 sets of documents described as “classified/TS/SCI”, “top secret”, “secret” or “confidential”.
Trump is not denying any wrongdoing, and has claimed that all documents obtained by FBI agents were classified.
The former leader stated on Monday that his lawyers have demanded that the DOJ be ordered to stop immediately the investigation of documents taken from Mar-a-Lago.
