The Justice Department has told the federal magistrate judge who approved last week’s search of former President Donald Trump’s Palm Beach, Florida, home and office that releasing a copy of the sworn statement prosecutors used to apply for a search warrant would jeopardise multiple ongoing investigations and could harm national security.
Multiple news organisations asked Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhardt last week to unseal all materials relating to the warrant, which authorised FBI agents to search Mr Trump’s home and office at his Mar-a-Lago resort for “any physical documents with classification markings,” “information, including communications in any form, regarding the retrieval, storage, or transmission of national [defence] information or classified material,” and “any government records created duplicatively.”
Although the Justice Department had previously asked the judge to unseal the warrant itself, citing Mr Trump’s public comments revealing the search of his property, prosecutors with the department’s national security division said in a Monday court filing that they would not support making public the underlying affidavit on which Mr Reinhardt based his decision to allow the search, citing “a very different set of considerations” than whether to unseal the warrant itself.
Prosecutors acknowledged the public interest in getting the sealed affidavit, but stated that the government has a “compelling, overwhelming interest in safeguarding the integrity of an ongoing criminal investigation.”
They went on to say that releasing the affidavit would “cause significant and irreparable harm to this ongoing criminal investigation” by revealing “critically important and detailed investigative facts” like “highly sensitive information about witnesses, including witnesses interviewed by the government” and “specific investigative techniques.”
Prosecutors also claimed that releasing the search warrant would reveal information that the government is compelled by law to keep secret because it involves grand jury testimony.
(With inputs from agencies)
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