A US judge on Thursday asked authorities to disclose a censored copy of the legal document they used to warrant a search of former President Donald Trump’s Florida property.
The court document termed affidavit, which also contains evidence provided by the prosecution, may contain fresh information about the investigation in its public version.
Africa Daily News, New York reports that following the ongoing probe, the Department of Justice objected to the release of an unredacted version.
The FBI raid was a component of an investigation into possible document handling violations.
Investigators claim they recovered classified documents at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, but Mr. Trump has denied the allegations and maintains that he has previously released the documents to the public
US Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart mandated on Thursday that the affidavit be made public with redactions by Friday at noon (16:00 GMT).
He said that the prosecution had provided a “compelling reason” to bury portions of the document that would disclose the names of witnesses, law enforcement officials, and unindicted individuals, as well as “the investigation’s strategy, direction, scope, sources and methods’.
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Soon after he made his decision the justice department acknowledged that it had given the judge a duplicate of the affidavit with suggested redactions.
On August 12, the actual search warrant as well as a list of retrieved goods that revealed 11 sets of secret documents had been taken from the estate were both made public.
Considering the special nature of the search of a former president’s home, several news organizations have requested that the affidavit be made public. They accomplish this by presenting the public interest in the matter.
However, the Department of Justice had objected, claiming that the disclosure of the information could result in ‘irreparable damage’ to its current investigation. The document would become ‘meaningless’ if the requisite redactions weren’t made, it added.
The unredacted document has been demanded for release by Mr. Trump and his lawyers, who have characterized the Mar-a-Lago search as politically motivated and illegal.
The efforts to ‘hide’ its contents, according to Mr. Trump’s spokesperson Taylor Budowich, were ‘cynical’ and might be used to ‘hide government corruption.’
Initial, Mr. Trump’s legal team requested that the probe be suspended and that a special master, an impartial third-party lawyer, be appointed to supervise the files that the FBI seized during the raid, this request was made this week.
Based on the search warrant, FBI investigators intended to determine whether Mr. Trump had broken the law by inappropriately handling official documents when he transferred them from the White House to Mar-a-Lago at the end of his tenure as president.
When vacating office, the US Presidents are mandated to move documents and emails to the National Archives.