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WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – A federal judge is hearing arguments Thursday on whether to withhold the affidavit central to the FBI’s search last week of former President Donald Trump’s Florida home, where agents have said they recovered several boxes of classified government materials.
A A Justice Department official told the judge that its investigation is “open and in its early stages.” The government maintains that unsealing the document now would “provide a road map and suggest the next investigative steps we are about to take.”
Lawyers for several media outlets, including the Washington Post, have argued that the affidavit should be made public given the “historic importance” of the Justice Department’s investigation.
“Transparency serves the public interest to understand and accept the results. That’s good for the government and good for the court,” Charles Tobin, an attorney for the media, said Thursday. “You can’t trust what you can’t see.”
Trump wants the Mar-a-Lago affidavit released as some aides ponder the risk
Trump has denounced the investigation as politically motivated, saying on social media this week that he believes the document should be scuttled without redaction “in the interest of TRANSPARENCY.”
His lawyers, however, have not filed a formal motion with the court to state that position. Trump’s lawyer, Christina Bobb, appeared in court Thursday, saying she was attending only to monitor the proceedings.
Jay Bratt, who heads the Justice Department’s counterintelligence and export control section, argues the government’s case before a roster of lawyers representing the media. Bratt has been heavily involved in the investigation, having visited Mar-a-Lago in June to examine materials Trump had stored there. The counterintelligence and expert control section leads investigations into leaks of government secrets.
Bratt said releasing the affidavit would jeopardize the well-being of witnesses named in the document and could have a chilling effect on others “who may come forward and cooperate in the government’s investigation.”
“The government is very concerned about witness safety,” Bratt said.
Former Justice Department officials who followed the case closely have said the affidavit is unlikely to contain any “good” information for the former president, and as The Post reported earlier this week, Trump’s advisers had not reached a consensus on whether disclosure would be in his best interest.
Law enforcement officials present these documents to a judge as part of their search warrant application. Affidavits usually include information about why authorities think there is evidence at a particular property and other details about their investigation.
It has become the latest flashpoint in the ongoing criminal investigation by federal authorities following Trump’s dispute with the National Archives over materials removed from the White House as his term ended last year.
Late last week, federal Magistrate Judge Bruce E. Reinhart, with the endorsement of the Justice Department, unsealed the search warrant and an inventory list that includes extensive descriptions of the classified materials that federal agents say which they recovered from Mar-a-Lago, the former president’s club and residence in South Florida.
Justice Department objects to release of Mar-a-Lago affidavit
Legal experts said the Justice Department’s reluctance to release the document is consistent with the way the agency conducts investigations and that it would be highly unusual for a judge to release the documents in full in the middle of an investigation. course
People who have spoken with Trump in recent days said the former president believes any information made public about the investigation into his handling of classified material will upset his supporters and ultimately benefit him politically.
But others in Trump’s orbit fear the move could backfire because they don’t know exactly what it contains.