Justice Department Submits Proposed Raid Affidavit Redactions to Judge

The Department of Justice has submitted its proposed redactions to the sworn affidavit accompanying the FBI search warrant of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence earlier this month.

“The court docket notes a filing by the Department of Justice under seal. The department faced a noon E.T. deadline set by the judge,” Fox News reported.

“The Justice Department has previously warned that releasing detailed information in the affidavit would jeopardize its ongoing investigation into documents stored on former President Donald Trump’s private property, and possibly endanger witnesses interviewed by the government,” the report added.

Justice Department submits proposed raid affidavit redactions to judge https://t.co/jUotkgEcLz #FoxNews

— Tammy Bruce (@HeyTammyBruce) August 25, 2022

Last week, Judge Bruce Reinhart has rejected an argument from the Department of Justice and admitted the FBI’s raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago was “unprecedented.”

In a filing, Reinhart rejected the Justice Department’s argument to keep the affidavit “sealed,” citing the “intense public and historical interest.”

Reinhart wrote that he rejects “the Government’s argument that the present record justifies keeping the entire Affidavit under seal.”

“The Government argues that even requiring it to redact portions of the Affidavit that could not reveal agent identities or investigative sources and methods imposes an undue burden on its resources and sets a precedent that could be disruptive and burdensome in future cases,” Reinhart wrote. “I do not need to reach the question of whether, in some other case, these concerns could justify denying public access; they very well might.”

He added: “Particularly given the intense public and historical interest in an unprecedented search of a former President’s residence, the Government has not yet shown that these administrative concerns are sufficient to justify sealing.”

Reinhart said he has given the Justice Department an “opportunity to propose redactions if I declined to seal the entire Affidavit,” something he granted last week, giving the government a deadline of Thursday, Aug. 25 at noon.

“Accordingly, it is hereby ORDERED that by the deadline, the Government shall file under seal a submission addressing possible redactions and providing any additional evidence or legal argument that the Government believes relevant to the pending Motions to Unseal,” the motion states.

Another attorney for former President Donald Trump has spoken on what she witnessed during the raid of his Florida home by the FBI.

His attorney, Lindsey Halligan, spoke with Fox News host Sean Hannity on Wednesday and warned that the search was more concerning than the former president being targeted.

“So I arrived around 11:00 a.m. and there were about 30-40 FBI agents that I saw, either of which were wearing suits, the rest were in cargo pants, masks, and gloves. And they basically had unfettered access to the property. They refused to talk to me. They refused to let me in. All I knew is that they were searching areas one, two, and three, which I understood to be the former president’s bedroom, his office, and a storage room. And other than that, we were not allowed to talk to them or go inside at all,” she said.

“That’s the thing. They had unfettered access to the property. They looked at god knows what in there and did god knows what in there. We have no idea. What the FBI did was an appalling display of abuse of power. All documents requested were previously handed over. President Trump and his team painstakingly reviewed every single document at Mar-a-Lago and gave the government what they requested. If they needed any other documents, they could have just asked. And the warrant was secured under seal, so they tried to get away with concealing this overreach by obtaining a warrant under seal. Nobody knew about it,” the attorney said.

“They knew that President Trump was in Bedminster and hasn’t been at Mar-a-Lago for some time. They thought they could sneak in, snoop around without attorneys present and in case they walked out with nothing, so nobody would know that they overreached this degree. It’s unprecedented in United States history. The government seems to be out of control. It’s plagued with manipulation, corruption, greed, and fraud,” she said.

In a series of posts on his Truth Social account, Trump questioned whether President Biden was aware of the FBI’s Aug. 8 raid before it happened.

“Joe Biden said he knew nothing about the Break-In of Mar-a-Lago or, the greatest political attack in the history of the U.S. Does anybody really believe this???” Trump wrote.

“The Radical Left Democrat prosecutors are illegally trying to circumvent, for purely political gain, the Presidential Records Act, under which I have done absolutely nothing wrong,” Trump continued. “It can not be circumvented, for me or any other President. They illegally Raided my home, and took things that should not have been taken. They even broke into my safe, an unthinkable act!”

“The Justice Department and FBI are ‘leaking’ at levels never seen before — and I did nothing wrong!!!” Trump also wrote, without elaborating.