“Disclosure of the government’s affidavit at this stage will likely spoil future cooperation from witnesses whose assistance may be sought as this investigation progresses, as well as in other high-profile investigations,” the Justice Department wrote. “The fact that this investigation involves highly classified material further underscores the need to protect the integrity of the investigation and exacerbates the potential harm if the information is disclosed to the public prematurely or inappropriately.”
Media organizations, including CNN, had requested that the affidavit be unsealed after last week’s search of Trump’s Palm Beach, Fla., club and residence.
The Justice Department said in its filing that releasing details of the affidavit “at this juncture” would “cause significant and irreparable harm to this ongoing criminal investigation.”
“The corrections necessary to mitigate the damage to the integrity of the investigation would be so extensive that the remaining unsealed text would be devoid of substance, and the release of such a redacted version would serve no public interest,” the Justice Department said.
CNN, along with the Washington Post, NBC News and Scripps, asked a judge last week to unseal all documents — including any affidavits of probable cause — related to the FBI investigation.
“Not since the Nixon administration has been the subject of such a dramatic and public criminal proceeding for a President,” the media said in the filing, adding that the media “are seeking to shed light on the unprecedented actions and motives of the federal government.”
“Here, there could not be a more ‘historically significant event’ than an FBI raid on a former president’s home to allegedly remove national security files after he left office,” the media reported.
The New York Times, CBS, Palm Beach Post, Miami Herald, Tampa Bay Times, Wall Street Journal, Associated Press and ABC also asked the judge to unseal the affidavits.
A judge unsealed the Mar-a-Lago search warrant and proof of ownership on Friday after the former President’s Justice Department lawyers agreed they should be released. Other parts of the search warrant, including the probable cause affidavit, were not reviewed at the time.
The search warrant identifies violations of the Espionage Act, obstruction of justice and criminal manipulation of government records as grounds for the search.
The evidence list, which shows what items agents recovered from Mar-a-Lago, shows that agents removed 11 sets of classified documents — including some at the highest levels of classification — from Trump’s home.
Republican politicians continued to demand that the Justice Department explain its reasoning for the dramatic step in the Mar-a-Lago investigation.
After the judge unsealed the search warrant and evidence of Trump’s assets last week, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said in a series of tweets that “We still need to see the affidavit” and that “the Attorney General ( Merrick) Garland should share the information about why a warrant was necessary, not what was obtained.”
Republican Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that “the release of the affidavit would help, at least it would confirm that there was justification for this raid.”
Prosecutors must “show that it wasn’t just a fishing expedition, that they had proper cause to go in and do this, that they exhausted all other means,” Rounds said, noting that waiting would harm the department’s integrity. “And if they can’t do that, then we have a serious problem on our hands.”
Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and the top Republican on the committee, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, sent a letter Sunday to Garland and top intelligence officials seeking declassification of the documents seized in Mar -a. – Hare.
Ohio Rep. Mike Turner, who is the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, echoed that demand Sunday, telling CNN’s Brianna Keilar that “Congress is saying show us the goods.”
