WASHINGTON (AP) – The Justice Department rebuffed efforts to make public the affidavit supporting the search warrant for former United States (US)President Donald Trump’s estate in Florida, saying the investigation “implicates highly classified material” and the document contains sensitive information about witnesses.
The government’s opposition came in response to court filings by several news organisations, including The Associated Press, seeking to unseal the underlying affidavit the Justice Department submitted when it asked for the warrant to search Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate earlier this month.
Trump, in a Truth Social post early yesterday, called for the release of the unredacted affidavit in the interest of transparency.
The court filing – from US attorney in Miami Juan Antonio Gonzalez and top Justice Department national security official Jay Bratt – argues that making the affidavit public would “cause significant and irreparable damage to this ongoing criminal investigation”.
The document, the prosecutors say, details “highly sensitive information about witnesses”, including people who have been interviewed by the government, and contains confidential grand jury information.
The government told a federal magistrate judge that prosecutors believe some additional records, including the cover sheet for the warrant and the government’s request to seal the documents, should now be made public.
