Florida judge says he's inclined to unseal parts of an affidavit detailing the DOJ's rationale for searching Mar-a-Lago

• A magistrate judge said he's inclined to unseal parts of an FBI affidavit underlying the Mar-a-Lago search warrant.
• The DOJ had asked to keep the affidavit under seal to safeguard its investigation into Trump's handling of national security information.

A Florida judge said Thursday that he's inclined to unseal parts of an FBI affidavit laying out the Justice Department's rationale for seeking a search warrant against former President Donald Trump.

Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart made the statement at a widely-watched hearing during which the DOJ faced off against media organizations over whether the affidavit, which is currently under seal, should be released to the public.

"I am not prepared to find that the affidavit should be fully sealed," Reinhart said during Thursday's hearing.

Noting that he hasn't made a decision yet, the judge instructed the DOJ to submit its proposed redactions for the affidavit by next Thursday, after which Reinhart will come to a final ruling.

The FBI executed its search warrant at Mar-a-Lago last week and recovered 20 boxes of official government documents and at least 11 sets of classified records, some of which were marked top secret.

Reinhart later authorized the release of the warrant, which revealed that the Justice Department is currently investigating if Trump broke three federal laws, including the Espionage Act, when he moved the records from the White House to Mar-a-Lago upon leaving office.

Jay Bratt, a counterintelligence official at the DOJ, argued Thursday that the affidavit should stay under wraps because the investigation is still in its "early stages," and unsealing the affidavit could undermine the inquiry.

Bratt also said there's a "real concern" for the safety of witnesses involved in the investigation, adding that the document's release could "chill other witnesses who may come forward and cooperate" with prosecutors.

Reinhart scheduled Thursday's hearing after multiple media outlets and transparency organizations asked for all documents and records connected to the Mar-a-Lago raid to be released to the public.

"Transparency serves the public interest in understanding and accepting the results. That's good for the government and for the court," Charles Tobin, a lawyer representing the media organizations, said Thursday. "You can't trust what you cannot see."

According to The Washington Post, Trump himself believes releasing the affidavit will galvanize his supporters and give him more ammunition to attack the Justice Department. But legal experts say that strategy could easily backfire on the former president.

"Trump should be careful what he asks for," one former DOJ official, who requested anonymity to candidly discuss the topic, told Insider. "The spectre of a conspiracy is better than people actually seeing the probable cause" that the department used when seeking its warrant.

The former official added that it's "unheard of" for a judge to unseal an affidavit like this, given the sensitivity of the investigation and the fact that it relates to classified records and information pertaining to the US's national defense.

Bratt alluded to the nature of the DOJ's probe at court on Thursday, telling Reinhart that it would be impractical for the government to redact information it considers truly sensitive because "there would be nothing of substance" in the redacted affidavit.

But Andrew Weissmann, a former FBI general counsel who later worked on the special counsel Robert Mueller's team, told MSNBC that even a redacted version of the document could contain telling clues about the direction of the DOJ's investigation and key exchanges between Trump's lawyers and department officials before the raid.

Those exchanges could demonstrate how the DOJ tried in good faith to get the records and exhausted other less intrusive measures before deciding to seek a search warrant.

In all, it could look "pretty bad for Trump," Asha Rangappa, a former FBI agent and a dean at Yale Law School, wrote on Twitter.