The Florida judge who studied this Thursday the arguments for and against publishing the reasons that led the FBI to search Donald Trump’s home will wait to have an edited version and without sensitive data about the investigation to decide if you can release it.
(Also read: The keys to the trade negotiation between the United States and Taiwan)
During a hearing of more than two hours held in West Palm Beach (Florida), Judge Bruce E. Reinhart listened to the two parties -some of the main media outlets in the country on one side and the Prosecutor’s Office on the other- of this “single case,” as he described it, and leaned toward a possible redacted release of the so-called “sworn statement” that justified Trump’s search.
While media lawyers insisted that the public has a right to understand why Mar-a-Lago, the club where the former president has his residence, was registered, the Justice Department underscored the risks to the ongoing investigation of disclosing the motives for this raid.
Reinhart ended up asking the Prosecutor’s Office to present a proposal to edit this document before August 25, with the parts it considers crossed out so that they cannot be made public.
The hearing occurs after a week of pressure that led the Prosecutor’s Office to allow the disclosure of the judicial search warrant to the house of former President Trump (2017-2021) in Mar-a-Lago (Palm Beach) on August 8. .
“This has never been done before” Jay Bratt, head of the counterintelligence office of the Department of Justice (DOJ), said Thursday during the hearing, in which he insisted that the affidavit contains highly sensitive information whose disclosure would put the entire investigation at risk.
Meanwhile, six lawyers, representing more than a dozen media companies, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, ABC, CBS and NBC, insisted on “the powerful interest of the public” to know the reasons of this “unprecedented investigation”.
They called for the “rapid” disclosure of the affidavit for the sake of “transparency” especially in a case as “unique” as this one and protected by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, which protects the right to information.
“You can’t believe what you can’t see,” said one of the media’s lawyers. So far, the disclosed search warrant has shown that Trump took classified material from the White House to his residence.
Said order also pointed out the crimes in which he may be incurring: Violation of the Espionage Law, obstruction of justice and destruction of documents. The judge did allow today to release another document that insists that the record is related to the cited crimes.
During the hearing, the judge acknowledged the public’s interest in information related to the case involving Trump, but also noted that an investigation is also a public service.
probable cause
The affidavit that some want to publish and others keep secret is the heart of the investigation. In this sense, Bratt explained that it is a document that contains “highly confidential information about witnesses” and “specific investigation techniques” among other “critical” details.
(Also read: The keys to the trade negotiation between the United States and Taiwan)
And in the face of what the media or Trump himself and Republican leaders defend, who ask for its publication, the representative of the Department of Justice warned that doing so would not only ruin the investigation by alerting those possibly involved or intimidating witnesses, but would also bring “national security risks”.
The Prosecutor’s Office has also indicated that publishing the affidavit would weaken the future cooperation of witnesses whose assistance may be requested as this investigation progresses, as well as in “other high-profile investigations.”
Bratt echoed during the hearing the warnings of the prosecutor Juan Antonio González, who was also present, of the significant and irreparable damage that the disclosure requested by the media would cause to the criminal investigation.
The media representatives rejected the government’s position of keeping this document totally sealed by pointing out that mentions that the Department of Justice wants to protect can be crossed out.
But Bratt responded that it would not be “practical” to publish an edition of the document with many parts redacted because it would make it incomprehensible or without substance to the public.
In any case, on the side of the media – including The Wall Street Journal, Tampa Bay Times, Palm Beach Post and The Associated Press – they criticized the lack of explanations about how the publication of the document would harm the investigation.
EFE
More news
Mom shows how she trains her son to avoid a shooting in the United States
UK: new wave of strikes against inflation affecting wages
#Judge #decide #publish #reasons #Trumps #house #search