Liberal Forum

U.S. government officials haven’t presented sufficient evidence to keep a key document related to the search warrant executed at former President Donald Trump’s home shielded from the public, a federal judge ruled on Aug. 22.

Officials have claimed that an affidavit that convinced U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart to approve the warrant needs extensive redactions to protect FBI agents and witnesses, as well as the ongoing investigation into Trump.

The redactions would leave “very little—nothing of substance,” Jay Bratt, chief of the Department of Justice’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section, told Reinhart during a recent hearing.

The government has met its burden of showing that its interests outweigh public access to unsealing the entire affidavit, Reinhart said in the new ruling. But the government hasn’t yet sufficiently shown that portions of the document shouldn’t be made public.

“I cannot say at this point that partial redactions will be so extensive that they will result in a meaningless disclosure, but I may ultimately reach that conclusion after hearing further from the government,” he said.


https://www.theepochtimes.com/judge-gov ... u0btc58%3D