Justice Department Opposes Releasing Mar-a-Lago Raid Affidavit

The Justice Department on Monday opposed efforts to release the affidavit supporting the search warrant authorizing the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago.

Summary

The Justice Department on Monday opposed efforts to release the affidavit supporting the search warrant authorizing the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago.

• Prosecutors argued releasing the affidavit would “cause significant and irreparable damage to this ongoing criminal investigation” and “serve as a roadmap to the government’s ongoing investigation” that would be “likely to compromise future investigative steps.”
• The affidavit contains the evidence the Justice Department used “to demonstrate they had probable cause to believe crimes were committed at Trump’s home” – the standard DOJ needed to meet to get a judge to sign off on the search warrant.
• The search warrant was made public Friday, and it identified “violations of the Espionage Act, obstruction of justice and criminal handling of government records as reasons for the search.”
• Former president Donald Trump called for Attorney General Merrick Garland to release without delay the “completely unredacted” affidavit for the sake of “transparency” about what the former president called a “horrible and shocking BREAK-IN.”
• Earlier Monday, Georgia prosecutors informed attorneys for Rudy Giuliani he was a target in the Fulton County district attorney’s investigation into efforts by Trump and his associates to interfere in the 2020 election in the Peach State.
• The former New York mayor is set to testify before a grand jury Wednesday, and a federal judge ruled Monday that South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham must also testify before the grand jury about calls he made to Georgia’s Secretary of State in January 2021.

• The New York Times reported the Justice Department fears releasing the affidavit could “likely chill” cooperation with witnesses and keeping it under wraps would protect their identities from death threats.
• The Washington Post noted many prominent mainstream media outlets supported Trump’s bid to release the documents due to the “historic importance of these events” and the public’s “clear and powerful interest in understanding what occurred in these circumstances.”
• POLITICO assessed Trump’s claims that he verbally declassified the records seized at Mar-a-Lago by FBI agents and concluded his claims are not as “unprecedented or outlandish an argument as widely believed.”

• The Wall Street Journal reported Attorney General Merrick Garland “deliberated for weeks” over approving a warrant application to search Mar-a-Lago. Garland faces a series of decisions in the coming weeks over whether to charge Trump, his associates, or Hunter Biden.
• National Review wrote Garland is “on the path to the abyss” as he weighs indicting Trump, which would be “one of the most consequential acts by the Justice Department in decades.”
• Fox News covered the former President’s social media “tirade” in greater detail. In “his latest rant against the FBI search of his home,” Trump wrote, “There is no way to justify the unannounced RAID of Mar-a-Lago” and decried the “gun-toting FBI Agents” who searched Mar-a-Lago.

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© Dominic Moore, 2022