Judge Orders DOJ to Redact Mar-a-Lago Affidavit Ahead of Potential Unsealing
Summary from the AllSides News Team
A federal judge ordered the Justice Department to redact and potentially eventually release the affidavit used to request a search warrant for former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence.
The judge, Bruce Reinhart, gave the Justice Department a week to redact the document. The DOJ argued that unsealing the affidavit could compromise a national security investigation, including by revealing the identities of key witnesses. Over a dozen media outlets — including the Associated Press (Lean Left bias), The New York Times (Lean Left bias), The Washington Post (Lean Left bias), CBS News (Lean Left bias), NBC News (Lean Left bias), Judicial Watch (Lean Right bias), CNN (Left bias), The Palm Beach Post (Center bias) and others — argued the affidavit should be unsealed.
Reinhart said portions of the document “could be presumptively unsealed,” adding that it was not for him to decide “whether those portions would be meaningful for the public or the media.” While Reinhart will make his final decision on August 25, he reportedly ordered some related documents to be unsealed today, including the application for the warrant.
Coverage was widespread and prominently featured in outlets across the political spectrum. Some coverage differed in reflecting the specifics of Reinhart’s ruling, particularly that he had not yet made his final decision on unsealing.
Featured Coverage of this Story
From the Left
Judge appears willing to unveil some of Mar-a-Lago affidavitA federal judge on Thursday ordered the Justice Department to put forward proposed redactions as he committed to making public at least part of the affidavit supporting the search warrant for former President Donald Trump’s estate in Florida.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart gave prosecutors a week to submit a copy of the affidavit with proposed redactions for the information it wants to keep secret after the FBI seized classified and top secret information during a search at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate last week.
The Justice Department also revealed during Thursday’s hearing...
From the Right
Judge poised to release parts of key Mar-a-Lago raid documentA Florida federal judge ruled Thursday that portions of the affidavit underpinning the FBI search of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate could likely be made public — despite objections from the Justice Department.
West Palm Beach Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart — who signed off on the search of the 45th president’s home — said at the conclusion of a 90-minute hearing that “I believe — at least on my initial careful review of the affidavit — that there are portions that could be presumptively unsealed.”
Reinhart gave federal prosecutors...
From the Center
Judge: Some portions of Mar-a-Lago search affidavit can be made publicA federal judge magistrate said Thursday he is not prepared to find that the affidavit into the search of former President Donald Trump's Palm Beach home should be fully sealed.
There are portions of it that, at least presumptively, could be unsealed, U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart said at a hearing in West Palm Beach. Whether those unsealed portions will be relevant to the media will be for someone else to decide, he said.
“I’m going to move forward in that way," Reinhart told attorneys for the U.S. Department of Justice and various media agencies,...
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