Congressman Adam Schiff warned on Sunday that a potential decision by a judge to unseal an affidavit detailing the evidence that led to the FBI’s execution of a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago could imperil the DoJ’s investigation.
Speaking with CNN’s Jake Tapper on State of the Union, the California Democrat and Jan 6 committee member speculated that doing so could potentially lead to witnesses being intimidated by former President Donald Trump, which his panel has warned publicly on multiple occaisions is occurring in regards to their own witnesses.
“You could learn a great deal [from the sealed affidavit] and that’s just the problem for the Justice Department,” he said. “I think probably their concern is very legitimate ... we’ve seen the president retaliate against anyone he considers a whistleblower, accuse them of treason.”
He went on to blame Mr Trump for inspiring an armed man to attack an FBI field office in Ohio last week, leading to a shootout wherein the suspect was killed. The FBI and Department of Homeland Security released a joint memo warning that the likelihood of such attacks was skyrocketing in the wake of the Mar-a-Lago raid and as Donald Trump continues to disparage the DoJ.
Notably, the Justice Department will have the opportunity to make redactions on documents to protect the integrity of their investigation before such documents would be released to the public.
It’s unlikely that a judge would force the DoJ to release a redacted version of the affidavit that still provided the names of potential witnesses to the Trump team or wider public, given the volatile political climate and longstanding concerns about protecting investigations. The judge in the case, Bruce Reinhart, ordered the DoJ to begin preparing their redactions on that document last week ahead of a potential release.
Several media organisations have joined the case urging the judge to unseal some information about the search warrant, and last week an attorney representing those news outlets praised the balance that Mr Reinhart was striking.
"Judge Reinhart seems to have a very good sense that it is his job, as the gatekeeper in this case, to perform his function of balancing the interests in the public of accessing these materials, against the interest in the government and keeping them secret,” said attorney Deanna Shullman according to Spectrum News in New York.
The Mar-a-Lago raid has enraged many of Donald Trump’s diehard supporters and the right wing of the GOP in Congress. While some Republicans continue to urge caution, others like Kevin McCarthy are vowing time-consuming investigations of the agency at the behest of a potentially GOP-controlled Congress, and other Trump loyalists like Marjorie Taylor Greene are outright calling for the FBI to be defunded.
Violent threats against federal law enforcement continue to spread on social media platforms, including from Republican candidates for office.
A man running for state legislature in Florida, Luis Miguel, was suspended from Twitter in recent days after he tweeted that “Under my plan, all Floridians will have permission to shoot FBI, IRS, ATF and all other feds on sight!”
