DOJ Moves to Block Release of Trump Mar-a-Lago Raid Warrant Affidavit

The Justice Department is opposing the release of the underlying affidavit justifying its unprecedented raid of Mar-a-Lago, just days after it agreed to unseal the warrant approving the search of former President Donald Trump’s Florida resort.

“There remain compelling reasons, including to protect the integrity of an ongoing law enforcement investigation that implicates national security, that support keeping the affidavit sealed,” DOJ lawyers declared on Monday, also indicating, however, they would be open to releasing redacted portions of other related documents.

Trump is being investigated for a potential Espionage Act violation and possible obstruction of justice, according to the warrant unsealed Friday, which cited 18 U.S. Code 793 (part of the Espionage Act) related to “gathering, transmitting, or losing defense information.” Despite its name, many of the law’s provisions don’t relate specifically to espionage.

The warrant also pointed to 18 U.S. Code 2071 on “concealment, removal, or mutilation generally” and 18 U.S. Code 1519 on “destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in Federal investigations and bankruptcy.” The latter relates to potential obstruction of justice.

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Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart, who had also signed the Aug. 5 warrant for the Aug. 8 raid, ordered that the warrant to be unsealed after the Justice Department told the court that Trump wasn’t objecting to it being made public.

“The government has carefully considered whether the affidavit can be released subject to redactions,” the Justice Department said Monday. “The redactions necessary to mitigate harms to the integrity of the investigation would be so extensive as to render the remaining unsealed text devoid of meaningful content, and the release of such a redacted version would not serve any public interest.”

DOJ said that if the judge ordered a partial unsealing of the affidavit anyway, “the government respectfully requests an opportunity to provide the Court with proposed redactions.”

The department lawyers added that DOJ “does not object to unsealing other materials filed in connection with the search warrant whose unsealing would not jeopardize the integrity of this national security investigation, subject to minor redactions to protect government personnel.” It said those documents include the cover sheets associated with the search warrant application, DOJ’s original motion to seal, and the court’s original sealing order.

DOJ said its “proposed redactions to those documents have been filed under seal… and the government now asks the Court to unseal the materials contained in that filing.”

Attorney General Merrick Garland said last week he “personally approved the decision to seek a search warrant.”

The items seized by the FBI last week included “various classified / TS [top secret] / SCI [sensitive compartmented information] documents,” four “miscellaneous top secret documents,” three “miscellaneous secret documents,” two “miscellaneous confidential documents,” and one “confidential document.”

Trump and his allies said he declassified the records, with the former president contending he had a “standing order” throughout his presidency that “documents removed from the Oval Office and taken to the residence were deemed to be declassified the moment he removed them.”

The property to be seized included documents constituting “evidence” of violations of the listed criminal statutes, including “any physical documents with classification markings” along with any boxes containing that information and any other containers stored with those records. The FBI also looked for “any government and/or Presidential Records” from Trump’s presidency.

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Then-Archivist David Ferriero said in February the National Archives “identified items marked as classified national security information within the boxes” it received from Mar-a-Lago this year and so “because NARA identified classified information in the boxes, NARA staff has been in communication with the Department of Justice.” Ferriero said the Archives had “ongoing communications” with Trump representatives throughout 2021, “which resulted in the transfer of 15 boxes to NARA in January 2022.”

The referral has not been made public, despite Republican demands for it to be produced.