Attorney General Merrick Garland
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The Justice Department asked to unseal the search warrant for the search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago.
The department said the search “attracted little or no public attention” while it was taking place.
But Trump’s confirmation of the raid and the public interest warranted unsealing, DOJ argued.
The Justice Department on Thursday asked a federal judge to unseal the search warrant and other records related to the raid of Mar-a-Lago, the South Florida home and members-only club of former President Donald Trump.
At a press conference, Attorney General Merrick Garland said the Justice Department had taken the unusual step “in light of the former president’s public confirmation of the search, the surrounding circumstances, and the substantial public interest in this matter.”
Garland’s public remarks, his first since the Monday search of Mar-a-Lago, coincided with the Justice Department asking a magistrate judge in South Florida to unseal the warrant and an inventory of items seized from Trump’s property.
The unsealing request came in the face of pressure from Trump’s Republican allies for the Justice Department to release more details about the unprecedented search of a former president’s home. In taking the remarkable step, the Justice Department defied its longstanding policy against making public statements about ongoing investigations. Garland on Thursday stressed that the circumstances around the search of Mar-a-Lago warranted an exception.
“Much of our work is, by necessity, conducted out of the public eye. We do that to protect the constitutional rights of all Americans and to protect the integrity of our investigations,” he said. “Federal law, longstanding department rules, and our ethical obligations prevent me from providing further details as to the basis of the search at this time,” Garland said.
“There are, however, certain points I want you to know,” he added. “First, I personally approve the decision to seek a search warrant in this matter. Second, the department does not take such decisions lightly.
In a five-page filing, the Justice Department said asked a federal judge to unseal records related to the Mar-a-Lago search “absent objection by former President Trump.” Magistrate Judge Bruce E. Reinhart, who approved the search warrant, ordered the Justice Department to confer with Trump’s lawyers and advise by 3 pm Friday whether the former president opposed the unsealing request.
According to the department’s filing, Reinhart approved the warrant on August 5 — the Friday before the search of Mar-a-Lago. The filing indicated that the inventory of items seized from Mar-a-Lago would be at least partially “redacted,” meaning blacked-out in the version available to the public.
In the five-page filing, the Justice Department linked its decision to unseal the records closely to Trump’s rhetoric in the aftermath of the Mar-a-Lago search — an FBI raid the former president excoriated as a politically-motivated “weaponization of the Justice System.”
“At the time the warrant was initially executed, the Department provided notice directly to former President Trump’s counsel,” the DOJ said in the motion. It “did not make any public statements about the search, and the search apparently attracted little or no public attention as it was taking place.”
“Later that same day, former President Trump issued a public statement acknowledging the execution of the warrant,” the Justice Department continued. “In the days since, the search warrant and related materials have been the subject of significant interest and attention from news media organizations and other entities.”
In his lengthy public statement confirming the raid, Trump accused the Justice Department and the FBI of “prosecutorial misconduct” and “political persecution,” adding: “They even broke into my safe!”
His Republican allies quickly jumped to his defense, with Sen. Rick Scott saying that the federal government had gone the way of the Gestapo — the notorious secret police in Nazi Germany.