DOJ ordered to unseal redacted Mar-a-Lago affidavit

U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart gave the order only hours after the Justice Department turned in its proposed edits to the affidavit Thursday. The affidavit supported the warrant for the FBI’s search of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate earlier this month. The department has until noon Friday to release the affidavit. Information already made public in the course of the investigation shows that the FBI recovered 11 sets of classified documents from the estate and that the FBI was investigating “willful retention of national defense information.”

What will be in the affidavit? It is unclear how much new information for the public the affidavit will provide. Reinhart said Monday that the final redactions could be so extensive that they could render the document largely meaningless to the public.

Dig deeper: Read Lynn Vincent’s report in WORLD magazine about how the Mar-a-Lago search may usher in a new era in American politics.