What one legal expert anticipates won't be redacted in the affidavit for Trump's Mar-a-Lago documents
Former acting solicitor general Neal Katyal on Thursday explained what information could be released from the Mar-a-Lago documents investigation. The affidavit that will be released will be redacted in keeping with what the Justice Department has asked for.
"I wouldn't be remotely surprised if they weren't blocking out huge chunks of the affidavit because it would be irresponsible for them to risk the disclosure of key witnesses or grand jury information or anything like that at this point in the investigation," he explained. "So, now what happens here is the Justice Department could appeal because there is a principle at stake which is: 'We don't release affidavits, period.' When that is basically the Department's general position, as you said, it's incredibly rare for any sort of release and even a partial release to happen. But sitting in the chair of the solicitor general, and I don't think I would appeal this and the Justice Department got everything they wanted and as Carol says it's an unprecedented investigation."
News organizations who have asked for the information could appeal and he said he expects that they will because information is their main function.
"I wouldn't be surprised if we see an appeal in the 11th Circuit," he gave the caveat.
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His final point, however, is that he also wanted to point out that the Justice Department won in a way in court on Thursday.
"I think what those proposed redactions are going to be tomorrow, the part that's not redacted, that we'll all get to see, I suspect it's going to have damning information about Donald Trump. It's one thing for the department to protect sources and methods, witnesses and the grand jury information, all that kind of stuff. That's what the redactions are. But I expect, in that affidavit, to be a good discussion of all of the attempts that the Justice Department and the FBI had to try and retrieve these documents from Mar-a-Lago. What they thought was there and what they were hearing was there and that President Trump was thumbing his nose at them. And that part, I suspect, will come out maybe as early as tomorrow."
He went on to give a plug for Attorney General Merrick Garland, saying that because he's following the rules, he's winning in court after court.
"The rules are you don't leak information and you don't release the affidavit and the like, but here a court is ordering that to happen and it parallels something that happened yesterday — which I know we'll be talking about later — which is the release of the Barr memo on whether President Trump could be indicted for the Russia investigation. Garland could have released that, but he waited for a court to force his hand and that's standard DOJ process and procedure. And it allows us to look at that, and boy, that's pretty damning about Donald Trump, too."
See the panel discussion below:
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