Feds oppose unsealing affidavit for Trump’s Mar-a-Lago warrant
The affidavit used to support the search warrant for former US President Donald Trump’s Florida residence was not made public on Monday due to the investigation’s “implication of highly classified material” and the document’s sensitive witness information.
The opposition from the government was in response to court documents filed by several media outlets, including The Associated Press, that sought to unseal the affidavit that served as the foundation for the warrant application the Justice Department made earlier this month to search Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
In the interest of transparency, Trump demanded the release of the unredacted affidavit in a post on Truth Social early on Tuesday.
Making the affidavit public would “cause significant and irreparable damage to this current criminal investigation,” according to the court brief from Juan Antonio Gonzalez, the US attorney in Miami, and Jay Bratt, a top Justice Department national security official.
The paper, according to the prosecutors, contains private grand jury information as well as “very sensitive information regarding witnesses,” including people who have been interrogated by the government.
The paper, according to the prosecutors, contains private grand jury information as well as “very sensitive information regarding witnesses,” including people who have been interrogated by the government.
A federal magistrate judge was informed by the government that prosecutors thought additional materials, such as the warrant’s cover sheet and the government’s request to seal the documents, should now be made public.
According to a property receipt that was released on Friday, the FBI seized 11 sets of classified documents, some of which were also marked as “sensitive compartmented information,” a special classification meant to protect the most vital information about the country that, if made known to the public, could result in “exceptionally grave” harm to US interests.
There were no specifics in the court records about what information might be in the documents.
On Monday, the Justice Department admitted that “highly classified material” is “implicated” in the criminal investigation that is now underway.
The search warrant, which was also made public on Friday, stated that federal officials were looking into possible violations of three distinct statutes, including the Espionage Act’s regulations on gathering, distributing, and losing defence secrets.
The other laws cover the destruction, alteration, or fabrication of records in federal investigations as well as their concealment, mutilation, or removal.
Earlier this year, a search warrant was executed at Mar-a-Lago as part of a Justice Department investigation into the recovery of secret White House documents from Trump’s residence.
After claiming that 15 boxes of data it had taken from the estate, including classified records, the National Archives urged the agency to look into the matter.
It is yet unknown if the Justice Department issued the warrant merely to obtain the information, as part of a larger criminal investigation, or in an effort to bring the former president to justice.
The handling of classified material is governed by a number of federal regulations that carry both criminal and civil consequences as well as restrictions on presidential records.