US Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart took the weekend to think it over, and it turns out he might not be disclosing that affidavit undergirding the warrant to search Mar-a-Lago after all. Womp womp.
After a hearing on Thursday, the court held that “the Government has not met its burden of showing that the entire affidavit should remain sealed” and ordered the Justice Department to come up with a redacted version of the document for release by this Thursday, August 25. But in a longer order issued this morning, Judge Reinhart could find only one factor weighing in favor of full disclosure of the affidavit, namely that it “would promote public understanding of historically significant events.”
By contrast, the court pointed to multiple reasons to keep that shit under wraps, not least of which is MAGAworld’s unfortunate habit of endangering anyone who speaks ill of its Dear Leader, as it did “after the public release of an unredacted copy of the Inventory, [when] FBI agents involved in this investigation were threatened and harassed.”
To be clear, the court released a version with those names blacked out. Trump’s people gave an unredacted copy to Breitbart, which published it. After that, Garrett Zeigler, the aide to Peter Navarro who snuck in Mike Flynn, Sidney Powell, and the rest of the Derp Squad for the infamous December 18, 2020, Oval Office showdown with White House lawyers, doxxed one of the agents on Truth Social and Telegram. You may remember young Garrett slagging his former female co-workers who testified for the January 6 Select Committee as “THOTs.” He’s just an all-around sweetheart.
Anyway! Judge Reinhart did not mention the avalanche of antisemitic threats he himself has faced after having approved the initial warrant, but he did observe that “Given the public notoriety and controversy about this search, it is likely that even witnesses who are not expressly named in the Affidavit would be quickly and broadly identified over social media and other communication channels, which could lead to them being harassed and intimidated.”
Indeed, Trump’s own lawyer Alina Habba seems to be advocating for just that — which is quite a take from an officer of the court.
Also weighing against disclosure is the risk of revealing both the FBI’s sources and methods, which could compromise the ongoing investigation, and “physical aspects of the Premises,” which could compromise the Secret Service’s ability to keep Trump safe in them.
And speaking of the former president, Judge Reinhart noted this morning that “Neither Former President Trump nor anyone else purporting to be the owner of the Premises has filed a pleading taking a position on the Intervenors’ Motions to Unseal.”
“No redactions should be necessary and the whole affidavit should be released, given the Democrats’ penchant for using redactions to hide government corruption, just like they did with the Russia hoax,” he blarped on Truth Social, but not in court where it counts. Almost like he has a pretty good guess that whatever’s in that affidavit is NOT GOOD FOR HIM.
But “soon” we will be getting a “major motion pertaining to the Fourth Amendment” from Trump’s lawyers, he promises.
As of this writing, no motions, major or minor, have been filed by Trump’s lawyers in this case, although they have yelled a lot on TV. They appear to be planning to challenge the parameters of the warrant and to demand a special master to go through the documents seized, something that would presumably slow down the investigation by a few weeks.
Meanwhile, Trump’s lackey Kash Patel — who was formerly Devin Nunes’s lackey, before being inserted into the national security apparatus for ratfucking purposes — is floating a new theory of the case. What if the Government Services Administration is the one who planted those documents on poor, innocent Donald Trump?
Did the GSA also force Trump to hang on to those documents for 18 months in defiance of a subpoena for their return?
After Trump named him and disgraced journalist John Solomon as representatives to the National Archives, Patel has been making noises about marching down there and forcing the government to disclose documents Trump declassified on the way out the door in an effort to get out information about the Russia investigation, the Ukraine impeachment, Hunter Biden and anything else he thought might be politically useful for him.
“I’m going to identify every single document that they blocked from being declassified at the National Archives, and we’re going to start putting that information out next week,” Patel said on a podcast flagged by ABC, which noted dryly that “Patel did not provide a clear explanation of how he would legally or practically obtain the documents.”
Meanwhile back in court, it’s crickets from Team Trump, as Judge Reinhart seems ever more sympathetic to prosecutors’ position that there’s no redacted version of the affidavit that will both protect government interests and make coherent sense so as to meaningfully inform the public.
“I cannot say at this point that partial redactions will be so extensive that they will result in a meaningless disclosure, but I may ultimately reach that conclusion after hearing further from the Government,” he wrote.
This week should be CRAY-ZEE.
[US v. Sealed Search Warrant, Docket via Court Listener]
Wonkette is fully funded by YOU READING THIS. If you love Wonkette, donate below so we have salaries and benefits and things!
