The Department of Justice has been ordered to unseal the warrant for the search of former president Trump’s Mar-A-Lago home.
It comes after revelations by Trump’s son, Eric, that the FBI agents who swarmed into the sprawling Floridian estate had refused to show the family’s lawyer, Christina Bobb the warrant and had forced her to stand at the end of the driveway throughout the ordeal.
Bruce Reinhart, the magistrate judge who ordered the unprecedented search which saw some 30 FBI agents ransack their way through over 128 rooms, ordered the DOJ to file a response to demands to unseal the documents which were made by Albany Times Union and Judicial Watch.
Reinhart, who reportedly signed the warrant, had to be removed from Trump’s lawsuit against Hilary Clinton in 2016 because he had “personal bias” against one of the claimants.
The recusal stated that the judge had “personal bias or prejudice concerning a party, or personal knowledge of disputed evidentiary facts concerning the proceeding”.
Who’s Bruce E Reinhart? pic.twitter.com/A7Up57lrmi
— Ronald Kelly (@RonK3l) August 10, 2022
In other words, Reinhart has a blatant and obvious political ax to grind which could play a part in the decisions he makes regarding matters relating to Trump or politics, although the recusal did not say whether the bias lay in favor of or against Trump.
There were numerous strange circumstances and carryings-on which occurred during the search. According to Eric Trump, FBI agents had refused to allow his father’s attorney, Christina Bobb to see the warrant and they demanded that security cameras were switched off – a request which staff refused to adhere to:
“There’s 30 agents there,” he told the Mail.
“They told our lawyer… you have to leave the property right now. Turn off all security cameras.
“So they showed it to her from about 10 feet away. They would not give her a copy of the search warrant.”
Trump took to his social media platform, Truth Social to suggest that foul play could have been at hand and that the search was a coordinated attack by the left-wing establishment in conjunction with Biden in order to cancel him from politics for good:
“The FBI and others from the Federal Government would not let anyone, including my lawyers, be anywhere near the areas that were rummaged and otherwise looked at during the raid on Mar-a-Lago,” he posted to his account on Wednesday.
“Everyone was asked to leave the premises, they wanted to be left alone, without any witnesses to see what they were doing, taking or, hopefully not, ‘planting,’” continued the post.
Trump said that his attorneys were cooperating with the FBI, who removed several boxes of paperwork and files from the basement of the address. He said that his staff had extra security fitted on the basement door where the files were stored, as the FBI had suggested in June.
“In early June, the DOJ and FBI asked my legal representatives to put an extra lock on the door leading to the place where boxes were stored in Mar-a-Lago – We Agreed,” wrote the former president.
He said they had already been shown around the basement and had been made aware of the boxes. Then on Monday, agents stormed the basement, cut off the same lock they suggested was installed, and removed the boxes they had been previously shown.
“A surprise attack, POLITICS, and all the while our Country is going to HELL!” wrote Trump.
