Trump’s lawyers don’t object to unsealing search warrant, Justice Dept. says

Former President Donald Trump does not object to releasing a warrant related to the search of his South Florida home, the Department of Justice said in a notice filed Friday, formally removing an obstacle for the sought-after document to become public.

The notice, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, said the former president’s attorney, M. Evan Corcoran and James Trusty, have informed the federal government that the president does not object to its release.

The notice comes a day after Attorney General Merrick Garland’s Justice Department filed a formal motion to unseal the search warrant. It also comes after Trump, in a statement earlier Friday morning, said himself that he wants the court to publicly release a warrant that led to the search of his home at Mar-a-Lago, arguing again that the action taken by FBI agents on Monday was “unwarranted” and “unnecessary.”

“Release the documents now!” Trump wrote in the statement.

“Not only will I not oppose the release of documents related to the unAmerican, unwarranted, and unnecessary raid and break-in of my home in Palm Beach, Florida, Mar-a-Lago, I am going a step further by ENCOURAGING the immediate release of those documents, even though they have been drawn up by radical left Democrats and possible future political opponents, who have a strong and powerful vested interest in attacking me, much as they have done for the last 6 years,” Trump wrote.

The court has not yet released the documents, but several news organizations have obtained the warrant and the list of records taken from Mar-a-Lago.

The Justice Department asked a federal court in Florida to unseal the warrant and a list of items taken from Mar-a-Lago “absent objection” by the former president. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart — who signed the warrant on Aug. 5, three days before the FBI showed up at Mar-a-Lago — ordered the department to advise by 3 p.m. on Friday whether Trump opposes the motion to unseal the search warrant and property receipt.

The unusual motion to unseal the warrant from the department, announced Thursday by Garland in a rare public statement on an ongoing criminal probe, reflected the extraordinary nature of the search of a former president’s house. It also put the burden on Trump to choose whether to make potentially incriminating details of the case available to the public.

Garland said the FBI had gone to lengths to keep the execution of its search warrant out of public view, noting it was Trump — not the Justice Department — who alerted the media to the mid-morning search of his Palm Beach estate.

Because Trump had made the matter public, prompting a swirl of public interest and outcry from conservative Republicans, the Justice Department saw no reason to keep details of the warrant under seal, Garland said.

“The department filed the motion to make public the warrant and receipt in light of the former president’s public confirmation of the search, the surrounding circumstances and the substantial public interest in this matter,” Garland said.

The New York Times reported on Thursday evening that the records in question contain some of the most sensitive classified documents in the U.S. government, with The Washington Post reporting that they include material on nuclear weapons.