The Department of Justice (DOJ) disclosed Wednesday some of the previously redacted parts of the warrant application it had submitted to a judge to search former President Donald Trump’s Florida property.
The DOJ unsealed portions of the affidavit used in support of the warrant application after a ruling by U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart.
These parts included descriptions of what investigators alleged was in the boxes taken from Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s residence, and office, according to The Epoch Times.
However, much of the affidavit is still redacted.
For example, The Epoch Times reported that a few lines of the newly revealed text come from seven pages that are otherwise still under seal.
“It was FPOTUS’s [former president of the United States] practice to store accumulated documents in boxes, and that continues to be his practice,” reads one of the newly revealed lines of text.
“Based on my training and experience, I know that documents classified at these levels typically contain NDI [national defense information]. Multiple documents also contained what appears to be FPOTUS’s handwritten notes,” another unsealed part of the affidavit states, according to The Epoch Times.
This is the same warrant that was the subject of a legal battle in August 2022 pitting Trump, who wanted the whole warrant unsealed, against the DOJ’s position that the document should be substantially withheld.
“Not only will I not oppose the release of documents related to the unAmerican, unwarranted, and unnecessary raid and break-in of my home in Palm Beach, Florida, Mar-a-Lago, I am going a step further by ENCOURAGING the immediate release of those documents, even though they have been drawn up by radical left Democrats and possible future political opponents, who have a strong and powerful vested interest in attacking me, much as they have done for the last 6 years,” Trump wrote on Truth Social back in 2022.
Trump’s defense lawyers have taken issue with the strategies the prosecution has allegedly employed in building the case against the former president and his valet.
Earlier in June, it was revealed that Stanley Woodward, the lawyer for Trump’s valet and codefendant Waltine Nauta, had sent a letter to the D.C. district chief judge about what transpired in a meeting with a prosecutor regarding Nauta’s case.
In that letter, according to reporting by The Guardian, Woodward claimed that DOJ Counterintelligence Chief Jay Bratt and a member of the special counsel prosecuting team tried to leverage Woodward’s own application to become a D.C. superior court judge in order to influence him to have his client testify against Trump.
The Dallas Express reached Woodward by email, who declined to comment for this story.
In a tweet reporting this latest DOJ release, The Epoch Times noted that media organizations had requested the entire document be unsealed, but Judge Reinhart had decided otherwise, stating “investigative steps that have not yet been made public…should remain under seal.”
