In theory, the media has won a victory against the Justice Department. In practice it is not so clear. Several newspapers and television networks urged the Florida judge handling the case to release the statement or affidavit justifying the search of Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump’s mansion, because it was in the public interest. Prosecutors objected, saying it would harm the investigation. The judge has ruled that it will be made public, but that the most confidential parts will remain hidden in a somewhat Solomonic resolution. We have to wait at least a week to see how many strikethroughs the document has at the end and what information it contains.
Anticipating this possibility, the Justice Department, under the Attorney General, had already said that if the confidential parts were redacted, the document would be incomprehensible and meaningless, and therefore also opposed it. “The omissions required to mitigate the damage to the integrity of the investigation would be so extensive that the remaining text would be devoid of meaningful content,” he said in a brief filed with the court this week. Nevertheless, he asked the judge, if he should allow the partial publication of the report, to let him suggest which fragments should be protected.
Now the Justice Department has the task of proposing which parts are hidden next Thursday morning. There is a double risk. On the one hand, the publication of aspects that affect the investigation and the cooperation of witnesses. On the other hand, what ends up being published is so irrelevant that it gives the impression that there was no justification for the register. Once the judge has the proposal, he will make his decision, but he has already suggested that he is inclined to release part of the document. There could be a legal battle if he thinks the Justice Department has censored too much.
Donald Trump has in fact requested the release of the affidavit, in a not very frequent encounter with the media. The more information he has about the investigation to prepare his defense, the better for him. And his calculus is that the “top secret” things that might lead the public to believe the action was warranted will not be revealed. You have little to lose.
Trump tweeted on his social network this week: “There is no way to justify the unannounced raid on Mar-a-Lago, home of the 45th President of the United States (…) by a large number of armed FBI agents ., and the Department of Justice, but in the interest of TRANSPARENCY I demand the immediate release of the full affidavit with no hidden parts regarding this horrific and shocking break-in. The judge should also abstain from voting in this case.”
Both prosecutors and Trump agreed to release the search warrant with its appendices and the inventory of assets seized by Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents. This has enabled us to know that Trump is under investigation for at least three possible criminal offenses that carry fines and/or lengthy prison terms, and that numerous “top secret” documents were found on the registry. In a fresh compliment Friday, Trump claimed he declassified those documents, though there’s no documentary trace of them.
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What was not released was the statement, or affidavit, in which prosecutors argued that there was sufficient evidence of a crime to proceed with a search of a former president’s home, unprecedented in United States history. “The Government has a compelling and overriding interest in preserving the integrity of an ongoing criminal investigation,” he argued before the judge. As a rule, these certificates are not published.
The report “contains highly sensitive information about witnesses, including witnesses interviewed by the government, specific investigative techniques and information that is required by law to be kept secret, among other extremely important and detailed investigative facts,” he claimed. “Releasing the government’s affidavit at this stage could also affect future cooperation from witnesses whose assistance may be requested during the course of this investigation, as well as other high-profile investigations,” she added.
However, Judge Bruce E. Reinhart has a tendency to release anything that is not confidential. Whether what remains is of public interest, relevant or significant, he cannot say, he said at the hearing held this Thursday in the South Florida courthouse that he owns.
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