After FBI agents controversially stormed former president Donald Trump’s Mar-A-Lago home, the Department of Justice scrambled to block the release of the original affidavit but the long-awaited document will be released a few hours from now.
Judge Bruce Reinhart initially had concerns that the release of the papers, which will undoubtedly provide some revealing information about the raid, because he said their release could render the information “meaningless”.
“I find that the Government has met its burden of showing a compelling reason/good cause to seal portions of the Affidavit because disclosure would reveal the identities of witnesses, law enforcement agents, and uncharged parties, the investigation’s strategy, direction, scope, sources, and methods, and grand jury information…” wrote the judge in an explanation as to why the affidavit should not be released.
But yesterday, Reinhart gave the go-ahead for the release of the document, citing that it was in the best interest to do so as the individuals named in the paper are high-profile enough that the censorship of the document would not hide their identities from the public.
The feds oppose the unveiling of the document because they say that the release of the information could render the ‘investigation’ useless and discourage witnesses from coming forward.
In the Judge’s official “order to unseal”, he wrote that the government had “met its burden of showing a compelling cause to seal portions of the Affidavit because disclosure would reveal (1) the identities of witnesses, law enforcement agents, unchanged parties.
“As further explanation for this finding, I incorporate by reference my Order on Motions to Unseal.”
The Order concludes that the document will be released “in part” “on or before noon Eastern time”.
Judge signed order to unseal pic.twitter.com/XKjsypNqjq
— Jen Taub (@jentaub) August 12, 2022
Since the raid, which saw a group of FBI agents ransack the Trump family’s Floridian mansion on August 8, the former president and his family have claimed that the incident was political and designed to cancel Trump’s chances of becoming president again in 2024.
While Biden has insisted he knew nothing about the raid before it happened, Trump wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social:
“Joe Biden said he knew nothing about the Break-In of Mar-a-Lago or, the greatest political attack in the history of the U.S. Does anybody really believe this???”
Yesterday, his stepdaughter, Lara, told Fox that she believes that dirty politics were the real reason behind the raid, particularly as it’s likely Trump will run for the presidency in 2024:
“It’s ridiculous to assume that the current president did not know about an FBI raid from his own Department of Justice on the last president – and a person that he may be running against in the upcoming 2024 election.”
Many commentators have suggested that the raid could, in fact, work in Trump’s favor in 2024, as Republicans become more convinced that the establishment is actively working against the former president.
Neal Freeman, former editor, and columnist for the National Review wrote that for Trump, the raid was an “unqualified success”:
“If Trump wants GOP support here for a 2024 campaign, it’s now his for the asking. The Raid didn’t just stop the steady erosion of support to more viable GOP alternatives. It packed outraged, middle-roading Republicans atop his hard base, giving Trump enough sway for at least short-term party control. If the Democrats’ intention was to revive Trump’s flagging prospects, The Raid was an unqualified success.”
In a way, what’s written in the documents which we’ll see later today has paled into insignificance. We now have millions of Trump supporters who are convinced that the establishment is working in conjunction with the Dems to take their man down – and not without good reason.
The powers-that-be may have shot themselves in the foot with this one.
