Judge Appears Willing to Unveil Some of Mar-a-Lago Affidavit

A 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 of 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.

Reinhart did unseal some documents that the Department of Justice said were OK to release, including the warrant cover sheet laying out alleged crimes under probe and a pre-search motion to seal everything in the name of investigation integrity and evidence preservation.

The Justice Department also revealed during the hearing that the investigation into whether Trump illegally stored classified records at his Florida estate – and potentially violated the Espionage Act – is still "in its early stages."

Jay Bratt, a top Justice Department national security prosecutor, had argued that the affidavit should remain hidden from the public. Unsealing it, he said, would provide a "road map" of the investigation and expose the next steps to be taken by federal agents and prosecutors.

He argued it was in the public interest for the investigation, including interviews of witnesses, to go forward unhindered.

As the hearing kicked off, a small caravan of vehicles with Trump flags drove past the federal courthouse in West Palm Beach, Florida. An attorney for Trump, Christina Bobb, was in the courthouse on Thursday but said she was only there to observe the court proceeding.

Lawyers for several news organizations, including The Associated Press, argued that the affidavit's release would help the public determine if the Justice Department had legitimate reasons for the search or if it was part of a Biden administration vendetta against Trump, as the former president and his backers contend. Trump, in a Truth Social post last week, called for the release of the unredacted affidavit in the interest of transparency.

"The matter is one of utmost public interest, involving the actions of current and former government officials," wrote attorney Carol Jean LoCiero, who is representing the Times and others. "President Trump decried the search as an 'assault that could only take place in Third World Countries,' asserted agents 'even broke into my safe,' and otherwise challenged the validity of the search."

Reinhart gave the government until Thursday to submit its version with the proposed redactions. He said he would review it and may meet lawyers for the government and give them a chance to make an argument for why specific information should be withheld.

Justice Department attorneys have argued in a court filings that the investigation into Trump's handling of "highly classified material" is ongoing and that the document contains sensitive information about witnesses.

A recent filing by Juan Antonio Gonzalez, the U.S. attorney in Miami, and Bratt, a top Justice Department national security official, says making the affidavit public would "cause significant and irreparable damage to this ongoing criminal investigation."

"If disclosed, the affidavit would serve as a road map to the government's ongoing investigation, providing specific details about its direction and likely course, in a manner that is highly likely to compromise future investigative steps," they wrote.

FBI agents searched Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate on Aug. 8, removing 11 sets of classified documents, with some not only marked top secret but also "sensitive compartmented information," according to a receipt of what was taken that was released Friday. That is a special category meant to protect the nation's most important secrets that if revealed publicly could cause "exceptionally grave" damage to U.S. interests. The court records did not provide specific details about information the documents might contain.