The Daily Fuckup

A federal judge on Thursday ordered the Justice Department to submit proposed redactions to the affidavit that supported the search warrant for Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property, setting up a partial public release the next day. The order did not disclose the affidavit itself, but it moved the sealed document one step closer to public view after weeks of disputes over how much of the government’s case should come out. Under the court’s schedule, the redacted version was to be filed publicly on Friday, Aug. 26, 2022.

The affidavit is the sworn statement used to establish probable cause for the search warrant. It was filed under seal while the government argued that disclosure would expose witnesses, investigators, sources, methods and grand jury material. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart agreed that those interests justified redactions, rather than an all-or-nothing release.

Trump and his allies had pushed for either no release or far less disclosure, arguing the document should stay sealed. The government countered that some public release was appropriate given the intense interest in the Aug. 8 search and the extraordinary nature of a federal warrant executed at a former president’s private club.

The public version was expected to be heavily blacked out, and likely to leave major gaps in the underlying evidence. But even a partial release would matter because it would show, in at least broad outline, what investigators told the court when they asked for permission to search Mar-a-Lago. That is the record now moving into view: not the full file, but a redacted sworn account of why the search was approved in the first place.