First modification:
Judge Bruce Reinhart has in his hands the decision to reveal or not the justifications with which the FBI argued the search of the house that former President Donald Trump has in Florida. Although various media outlets ask him to release the documents, the Justice Department objects, saying this would hinder the investigation.
“There is part of the statement that can be published.” With these words, Judge Bruce Reinhart opened the door to reveal several of the documents with which the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) justified the August 8 raid on Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump’s residential complex.
Reinhart ordered the Justice Department to present an edited version of the evidence, known in court parlance as an “sworn statement,” and gave it seven days, which is August 25. Although the judge also clarified that prosecutors will have the opportunity to appeal if they disagree with the proposed draft.
This was what the US media that appeared in federal court in West Palm Beach was looking for. The arguments of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, ABC News, NBC News and is that the affidavit is in the public interest and that this outweighs the benefits of keeping it secret. According to one of the lawyers who intervened, no one but the public “could have a compelling interest in guaranteeing maximum transparency” of this event.
But the Justice Department opposes that view. At the hearing, Jay Bratt, chief of the counterintelligence and export control section, told Reinhart that “there is another public interest at stake, which is that criminal investigations can proceed unhindered.”
His argument is that the publication of the documents could affect the ongoing investigation, since it involved highly sensitive material in an investigation that, according to him, is still at an early stage.
For now, just a few lines
Although the affidavit is not yet known, Reinhart did open it to the public some documents of the process against Trump. The writing, censored in some lines, shows that some of the alleged crimes for which the former White House tenant is being investigated would be “intentional withholding of national defense information” and “concealment or elimination of government records.”
On one of the pages, the Prosecutor’s Office requests that the search warrant and related exhibits be sealed as “the integrity of the ongoing investigation could be compromised and evidence could be destroyed” if such documents are published. It even asks that the papers, which it classifies as “highly confidential”, not be presented in the electronic file as this also “represents a security risk given the sensitive nature of the material”.
And in fact, it was Judge Reinhart himself who on August 5 ordered that the documents be filed under the seal “until further order” from his office, as evidenced in the file published this Thursday.
Research as an electoral issue
The Mar-a-Lago raid is part of a federal investigation into whether Trump illegally deleted documents after his presidential term ended in January 2021. Specifically, the Justice Department presumes the violation of three laws, including a provision in the Espionage Act that prohibits the possession of national defense information and another law that makes it a crime to knowingly destroy, conceal, or falsify records with the intent to obstruct an investigation.
In fact, the list of documents seized at the former president’s residence shows that authorities found files there classified as “secret”, “confidential” and top secret.
On the other hand, the investigations against Trump take place in the midst of a strong electoral campaign ahead of the mid-term elections, considered as a ‘referendum’ to the work of the Democratic administration led by Joe Biden.
In the elections, the control of both chambers of Congress by the Democrats will be at stake, who are accused by the Republican counterpart of using the investigations against Trump as an electoral issue. The former president also accuses the “blue” party of carrying out a witch hunt against him, to prevent him from running in the 2024 elections.
In this sense, the Republicans have supported Trump. Members of Congress have promised that, if they are a majority, they would initiate an investigation against the FBI and other members of the US Justice for this event.
With Reuters and EFE
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