DOJ submits proposed redactions on affidavit behind FBI's Mar-a-Lago search

Following the FBI search at Mar-a-Lago that turned up 25 boxes of material containing hundreds of classified documents, Republicans, including Donald Trump, made loud calls for the Department of Justice to make the search warrant public … even though a copy of that warrant was provided to Trump and he could have published it in full at any time. Attorney General Merrick Garland responded by encouraging the release of that document.

However, when that warrant was published—showing the serious nature of the documents and giving some sense of the incredible frustration officials have felt in the attempt to get back stolen documents from Trump—Republican pundits and organizations switched to demanding the release of the affidavit behind the warrant. Trump joined that call in public, but he very notably did not join it in court.

Last week, federal Judge Bruce Reinhart surprised everyone by making the highly unusual decision that he would release portions of the affidavit. However, first he gave the federal government an opportunity to redact those portions of the document. Immediately came word that those portions turned out to be more or less all of the affidavit, leading to some statements from Reinhart that releasing the affidavit might be “meaningless” and made it seem as if the partial affidavit might not be released after all.

On Thursday, the Department of Justice submitted its proposed redactions. And between protecting witnesses to crimes and shielding information about documents where the document title alone represents a national security threat, there’s expected to be a lot of black ink on those pages.