Justice Department considers revealing documents seized from Trump

A federal judge has given the US Justice Department a week to draft an affidavit used to justify the recent search of former President Donald Trump’s Florida residence before the rest of the document can be made public.

The document is being sought by a media group following the unprecedented raid that was carried out as part of an ongoing federal investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents he brought to Mar-a-Lago.

The warrant issued to search Trump’s residence was revealed last week, showing that Trump is under investigation for several potential crimes, including obstruction of justice and a possible violation of the Espionage Act. The law makes it a crime to obtain and disclose national defense information that could be used to harm the United States and benefit its enemies.

But prosecutors are opposed to disclosing the most sensitive affidavit, the legal document they presented to a judge to obtain the search warrant.

Jay Bratt, chief of the Justice Department’s counterintelligence and export control section, argued that the document contains so much sensitive information that deleting it would render it virtually worthless.

“There would be nothing of substance,” Bratt said during Thursday’s hearing with federal judge Bruce Reinhart.

The raid on Trump’s residence during which agents removed 11 sets of classified documents he had taken from the White House and failed to deliver to the National Archives has drawn an angry reaction from the former president and his allies.

Trump claims he had a “standing order” to declassify all documents removed from the Oval Office, a notion disputed by many national security experts.

The FBI investigation into Trump’s handling of the classified documents is in its early stages, Bratt said in court Thursday.

The affidavit would almost certainly reveal far more information about the investigation than the search warrant, said Jordan Strauss, a former Justice Department official who is now managing director of Kroll, an investigative and risk consultancy.

“If, for example, there is a human confidential informant or other source of information, I could reveal that,” Strauss said in an interview. “And while there is no indication that this is the case, if there was a wiretap, if an anonymous tip was given to the FBI or other law enforcement agency, or if there are other sources or methods in which information is collected Like if there was a person who cooperated or a defendant who cooperated whose indictment is sealed, all of that could be made public if there wasn’t significant redaction.”

An affidavit, usually filed by an FBI agent, describes the type of crime being investigated, why prosecutors believe evidence of that crime can be found at the scene, and the government source of the information.

Generally, an affidavit is released after the defendant is charged with a crime, but not while an investigation is underway.

In deciding whether to release the affidavit, the government is in a quandary, said Daniel Richman, a former federal prosecutor who is now a law professor at Columbia University in New York.

“On the one hand, if you really go out of your way to protect all confidential sources and keep investigations as secret as possible, then you will be writing off this strange series of sentences that will become a Rorschach test for the American public,” Richman said. In an interview. “Those looking for a reason to believe this is a witch hunt will find it. Those inclined to think the government has reason to go ahead with this search will be satisfied.”

“Having a heterogeneous document floating around might not serve anyone’s purpose and will further create this really bad precedent that the media thinks they could always push for at least part of an affidavit to be released in high-profile cases,” Richman said.

But the media says that given the historical importance of searching a former president’s home, publishing the affidavit is in the public interest.

“The Mar-a-Lago raid by the FBI is already one of the largest policing events in the nation’s history,” Charles Tobin, an attorney representing the media groups, said during the hearing.

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