DOJ opposes release of Trump raid affidavit Transcript

Speaker 1: (00:01)
The US justice department said it opposes unsealing the affidavit used to search Donald Trump’s Florida home. The affidavit allowed prosecutors to obtain a search warrant in order to seize classified documents from Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s resort. The affidavit also contains evidence prosecutors used to demonstrate they had probable cause to believe crimes were being committed at Mar-a-Lago, which is the standard they had to meet to obtain the warrant. In recent days, Trump’s Republican allies have ramped up calls to Attorney General Merrick Garland to unseal that affidavit and that evidence. But on Monday, prosecutors argued that it’s release could reveal so much more. In a filing, they wrote that disclosing the document could, “Serve as a roadmap to the government’s ongoing investigation, providing specific details about its direction and likely course in a manner that is highly likely to compromise future investigative steps.” But the agency said it would not oppose the release of other sealed documents tied to the raid. On Friday, at its request, a federal court in South Florida, unsealed several legal documents that showed FBI agents seized 11 sets of classified records from the Palm Beach Resort.

Speaker 1: (01:14)
Some of those were labeled top secret, the highest level of classification. Those documents are usually kept in special government facilities, because disclosure could damage national security. The justice department on Monday cited this as another reason to keep the affidavit sealed. The Florida court also released the search warrant itself, which revealed the specific laws the DOJ was investigating violations of, including one, that prohibits the possession of national defense information. Prosecutors on Monday also cited the recent violence and increasing threats against the FBI as another reason against releasing that document. On the same day, the decision was announced to unseal the search warrant, an armed man with right wing views, tried to breach an FBI office in Cincinnati, Ohio. He was later shot dead by police following a car chase.