A Florida federal judge ordered the Justice Department Thursday to make public a redacted version of the affidavit underpinning the FBI raid on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate by noon Friday, the NY Post reports.
In a two-page order, Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart said he had accepted the government’s redacted version of the affidavit, which it filed under seal Thursday morning ahead of a noon deadline.
Reinhart, who approved the search warrant authorizing the Aug. 8 raid and said in a Monday ruling that the government had not justified keeping the full affidavit under wraps, wrote in his Thursday order that the DOJ “has met its burden of showing a compelling reason/good cause to seal portions of the Affidavit” that would reveal information about witnesses, grand jury information, or the “strategy, direction, scope, sources, and methods” of the probe into whether the 45th president illegally retained classified information.
“Reinhart… wrote in his Thursday order that the DOJ “has met its burden of showing a compelling reason/good cause to seal portions of the Affidavit” that would reveal information about witnesses…etc”
However, an unredacted version of the Magistrate Judge’s two-page order, that was secretly obtained by senior officials – who requested either anonymity or that their names be redacted from any news reports on this matter – states that although the DOJ “has NOT met its burden of showing a compelling reason to seal portions of the Affidavit, who gives a hoot! The main thing is that we sink Trump once and for all, and that you guys at the DOJ cover for me, and that I, the Magistrate Judge, cover for you.”
When asked about the unredacted version of his order, the Magistrate Judge told reporters, “I might be willing to discuss this matter with you, if you promise to redact my name and all the information I divulge to you in your news report.” To which the reporters replied: “Of course we’ll redact it, that’s our job! We’re mainstream media reporters, aren’t we?”