In a two-page order issued Thursday, Judge Bruce Reinhart said the Justice Department met the “compelling reason” or “good cause” legal standard required to keep portions of the affidavit under seal because disclosure of those portions would reveal “identities of witnesses, law enforcement officials and unwarranted parties” as well as the “strategy, direction, scope, sources and methods” of the ongoing investigation into whether Mr Trump violated US laws against the unauthorized retention of national intelligence. defense and obstruction of investigations. He added that keeping portions of the affidavit under seal would also protect grand jury information that the government is required to keep secret under the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. “Based on my independent review of the affidavit, I further find that the government has met its burden of showing that its proposed amendments are narrowly tailored to serve the government’s legitimate interest in the integrity of the ongoing investigation and are the least burdensome alternative to sealing the entire affidavit,” he wrote. Judge Reinhart ordered the government to file the redacted version of the affidavit in the court’s electronic filing system by noon Friday, when it will be available to the public. The affidavit, which FBI agents submitted to a judge when they sought a search warrant at the former president’s home for classified documents the government had probable cause to believe were stored there, could shed light on how federal investigators knew the former president. Trump. he had kept a cache of top secret material despite being out of office for nearly 18 months. A coalition of media organizations and the conservative group Judicial Watch had argued for the release of an unredacted version of the document, citing extreme public interest in the unprecedented search of a former president’s home. Although Mr. Trump’s lawyers were not involved in the effort to unseal the document, members of Trump’s legal team have called for its release in media appearances. One of Trump’s lawyers, Alina Haba, said during an appearance on Newsmax last week that Trump’s position was to unseal the entire affidavit, to “reveal everything,” including the identities of the witnesses, ” so we can see what’s going on. “. “These witnesses really aren’t going to hide for long,” he said. Trump’s legal team previously leaked to Breitbart News an unredacted version of the search warrant for his property shortly before Judge Reinhart ordered it unsealed days after the search. The unredacted search warrant contained the names of two FBI agents who conducted the investigation, leading some of Trump’s supporters to post allegedly personal information about the agents and their family members on social media. A copy of the property receipt provided to Mr. Trump’s lawyers, which was unsealed at the same time as the warrant itself, showed that FBI agents had recovered 11 boxes of documents from Mar-a-Lago, the Palm’s mansion Beach turned private club where the former president maintains his primary residence and post-presidential office. According to the affidavit, agents discovered multiple sets of classified documents, including some marked as containing “sensitive departmental information” intended only for viewing at special secure facilities. The search of Mr. Trump’s property came after months of discussions between Trump’s lawyers and the National Archives and Records Administration, which under the Presidential Records Act is supposed to take over custody of all records and documents created under the length of a president’s term when it expires. . In January, Nara revealed it had recovered 15 boxes of documents from Mar-a-Lago after negotiations with Mr Trump’s representatives. A May 10 letter from United States Archivist Debra Wall to Trump’s lawyer Evan Corcoran, released by one of Mr. Trump’s conservative media allies, shows that Nara officials found top-secret files between of the boxes, including “items marked as classified national security information, up to the level of Top Secret and including sensitive departmental information and Special Access Program material.” Nara officials were trying to recover even more classified records they believed Trump continued to keep in his possession with the help of the Justice Department, which had been negotiating with Trump’s lawyers for months before seeking a search warrant.
