BREAKING: DOJ Ordered To Respond After Requests To Unseal FBI's Trump Raid Warrant

DOJ ordered to respond after requests to unseal FBI's Trump raid warrant

by Jerry Dunleavy, Justice Department Reporter & Andrew Kerr, Investigative Reporter | |
August 10, 2022 04:00 PM


The Department of Justice must respond to motions to unseal the warrant behind the FBI raid of former President Donald Trump’s home in Mar-a-Lago, the magistrate judge who approved the unprecedented search ordered Thursday.

Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart, who is believed to have signed the still-sealed FBI warrant approving the bureau’s Trump raid, said the DOJ must now “file a Response to the Motion to Unseal” following efforts by Albany-based news outlet the Times Union and the conservative advocacy group Judicial Watch requesting the DOJ make the warrant public.

Reinhart said the DOJ’s response may be filed “ex parte and under seal as necessary to avoid disclosing matters already under seal,” meaning that the full response may be secret but that “the Government shall file a redacted Response in the public record” too.

PRESSURE BUILDS ON TRUMP AND BIDEN TO RELEASE MAR-A-LAGO SEARCH WARRANT

The Times Union lawyer wrote that FBI agents “applied for and received a search warrant in connection with an investigation that involved the residence of Donald J. Trump in Palm Beach” and that “I am filing this request seeking the unsealing request of these court records.”

Judicial Watch wrote that it is “investigating the potential politicization” of the FBI and the DOJ and whether they are “abusing their law enforcement powers to harass a likely future political opponent of President Biden” and that “if the Court were to unseal the materials, Judicial Watch would obtain the materials, analyze them, and make them available to the public.”

Reinhart said that the “Government may file a consolidated Response to all Motions to Seal” and that the DOJ will have until Monday to respond.

The magistrate judge's name came under considerable scrutiny Tuesday after multiple news outlets reported that he was the one who signed off on the FBI's raid of Mar-a-Lago. In particular, his connection to notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was highlighted.

Reinhart left his job as an assistant U.S. attorney on Jan. 1, 2008. The next day, he began representing some of Epstein's employees. He was accused in a lawsuit filed by two of Epstein's victims of leaving the DOJ to provide Epstein inside information, allegations Reinhart denied, the Miami Herald reported in 2018.

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida removed Reinhart's page from its website on Tuesday afternoon after his connection to Epstein went viral on social media.

"Access denied," Reinhart's page now reads. "You are not authorized to access this page."

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