The administration’s opposition came in response to court filings by several news organizations, including the Associated Press, seeking to unseal the underlying affidavit the Justice Department filed when it sought a search warrant at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property earlier this year. month. Trump, in a post on Truth Social early Tuesday, requested the release of the unredacted affidavit for the sake of transparency.
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The court filing — by Juan Antonio Gonzalez, the U.S. attorney in Miami, and Jay Bratt, the Justice Department’s top national security official — argues that releasing the affidavit would “cause significant and irreparable harm to this ongoing criminal investigation ». Story continues below ad The document, prosecutors say, details “highly sensitive information about witnesses,” including people interviewed by the government, and contains confidential grand jury information. The government told a federal judge that prosecutors believe some additional records, including the warrant cover and the government’s request to seal the documents, should now be released. 2:21 Threats against FBI increase after search of Trump’s Florida home Threats against FBI increase after search of Trump’s Florida home A proof of ownership unsealed Friday showed the FBI seized 11 sets of classified documents, with some not only classified as top secret but also “sensitive information,” a special category that protects the nation’s most important secrets that, if disclosed publicly, could cause “extremely serious damage to US interests. Court records did not provide specific details about what information the documents may contain. The Justice Department acknowledged Monday that its ongoing criminal investigation “includes highly classified material.” Story continues below ad The search warrant, also unsealed Friday, said federal agents were investigating possible violations of three different federal laws, including one governing the collection, transmission or loss of defense information under the Espionage Act. The other statutes address the concealment, mutilation, or removal of records and the destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in federal investigations. The Mar-a-Lago search warrant, executed last Monday, was part of an ongoing Justice Department investigation into classified White House files recovered from Trump’s home earlier this year. The National Archives had asked the department to investigate after it said 15 boxes of records recovered from the estate contained classified records.
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It remains unclear whether the Justice Department moved forward with the warrant simply as a means to retrieve the records or as part of a broader criminal investigation or effort to prosecute the former president. Multiple federal laws govern the handling of classified information, with criminal and civil penalties, as well as presidential records. But the Justice Department, in its filing Monday, argued that its investigation is active and ongoing, and that releasing additional information could not only jeopardize the investigation, but also subject witnesses to threats or deter others. from cooperating with prosecutors. “If disclosed, the affidavit would serve as a road map for the government’s ongoing investigation, providing specific details about its direction and likely course, in a way that is highly likely to jeopardize future investigative steps,” she wrote. government in the court filing. © 2022 The Canadian Press
