DOJ files motion to unseal search warrant used for Trump’s Florida residence

Read the Full Transcript

• William Brangham:

  Attorney General Merrick Garland announced today that he personally approved the decision to seek a search warrant for former President Trump's home in Palm Beach, Florida.

  FBI agents executed the warrant at Mar-a-Lago earlier this week. Reports indicate they were searching for classified documents, but more details could soon be revealed. Garland said today that the Department of Justice filed a motion to make the search warrant and a receipt of the items taken public.

• Merrick Garland, U.S. Attorney General:

  The department does not take such a decision lightly.

  Where possible, it is standard practice to seek less intrusive means as an alternative to a search and to narrowly scope any search that is undertaken. Much of our work is, by necessity, conducted out of the public eye. We do that to protect the constitutional rights of all Americans and to protect the integrity of our investigations.

• William Brangham:

  To help us understand what this all means, I'm joined by former federal prosecutor and professor at the Cardozo School of Law Jessica Roth. She's been following this of all closely.

  Jessica Roth, great to have you back on the "NewsHour."

  So, Garland came out today and said: I authorized this. We are going to try to make this warrant and the list of what we took public.

  Again, we know that Garland likes to let his actions and his department's actions speak for themselves. So seeing him in front of the cameras today was a bit striking. Did you see it the same?

  Jessica Roth, Yeshiva University Cardozo School of Law: Yes, absolutely.

  It was very striking and unexpected for me to see him today at that press conference.

  But I actually think that it was important that he do what he did today and entirely appropriate under the circumstances. And I thought it was very important and appropriate that he filed the motion to unseal the search warrant application at this stage.

  As is set forth in that application, there are really two reasons primarily why search warrant applications remain under seal usually at this stage in the proceedings. One is to protect the privacy interests of those who are searched. And the other is to protect the integrity of ongoing law enforcement operations.

  In this circumstance, former President Trump himself essentially decided he didn't want to keep it private. He announced that the search had happened. And Attorney General Garland is essentially saying that, in the Department of Justice's opinion, the application, at least in some redacted form, can be made public without compromising ongoing law enforcement concerns, and that there's a significant public interest here.

  And so it's important that the public have accurate information about precisely what it was that the department was investigating. And if the application is granted, the public will know what facts are in the possession of the department to set forth probable cause that specific crimes were committed and that evidence of them were to be found in the former president's residence.

• William Brangham:

  So the former president can object to that unsealing, right? What would be the basis for his objection to that happening?

• Jessica Roth:

  Well, he could object on the basis that he does have ongoing privacy interests that would be compromised by the release of this information.

  It is one thing to announce that there was a search of your home. It's another thing to have it out in the public exactly what crimes that the search was there to look for evidence of and the specific facts that establish probable cause, to a judge's satisfaction that those crimes had been committed and that evidence of them was to be found at that location.

  So, if the motion is granted, the public will soon have a lot more specific information about what the FBI alleges had occurred and the evidence. Importantly, also, if the inventory of items that was recovered is released, then the public will have a sense of what the evidence was that was recovered.

• William Brangham:

  Can you take a step back here for us and help us — just remind us, given that there are so many of these cases going, the January 6 investigation. There's the New York attorney general.

  As far as we know, what is the DOJ looking at here? What was the FBI trying to find, as best we know it?

• Jessica Roth:

  So it's important to state at the outset that we do not yet have public confirmation or official confirmation from the Department of Justice about the nature of the investigation that gave rise to the search warrant.

  However, the fact that the motion to unseal the search warrant application was signed in part by the chief of the Department of Justice's counterterrorism section tells us that it likely was part of an investigation that he was overseeing, which means it would be — involve counterintelligence interests.

  And that would be consistent with the reporting that has been done about essentially the buildup to this search, which was a back-and-forth between the National Archives and the president — former president's representatives about an effort to recover material he took from the White House when he left and about how, when the Archives did recover some of that material, they found in it classified information that should not have been taken from the White House, and their ongoing determination that there were still classified materials that were missing.

  And so the fact that the motion today was signed by somebody who is in charge of counterintelligence investigations suggest that that is the focus, at least primarily, of this search warrant.

• William Brangham:

  Garland's comments, as you well know, come amidst this remarkable conservative backlash to this raid, the — quote, unquote — "raid" on the president's — former president's home, some very angry, violent rhetoric being directed at the Department of Justice and at the FBI over their actions in this case.

  I mean, we saw this attack today in Cincinnati — it's unclear if that was related — on a FBI office. Do you think on some level that that is partly what motivated the attorney general to come out today to try to cool some of that down?

• Jessica Roth:

  I think that the attorney general felt it was important to get accurate information about what the department was doing out into the public domain, so long as it was legally permissible for him to do so.

  There has been a lot of misinformation and disinformation out in the public domain. Some of it may be responsible for some of the violence and the rhetoric that you're talking about. I'm not confident that those who take part in that rhetoric and those actions will necessarily hear what the attorney general had to say today.

  But, nevertheless, it's important that he not cede the entirety of the public domain to — domain to information that is inaccurate. I also think it was important that he stand up for the personnel of the Department of Justice, including the FBI agents, as he said at the press conference today, to stand up for their professionalism and integrity in the face of such attacks.

  So, when it's permissible for the Department of Justice is to be somewhat transparent about its actions and to explain the actions it's taking on behalf of the American people, it's important that it do so.

• William Brangham:

  Lastly, in just the few seconds we have left, we heard Attorney General Garland say that he would have preferred a less intrusive approach.

  He's implying there that — in essence, that we sent subpoenas, we asked for this to go down in a gentler way, and that didn't happen. Is that how you read that?

• Jessica Roth:

  Yes.

  What he was making clear is that the department prefers to act in ways that are less intrusive than a search warrant, which is a very intrusive measure. It's time-intensive. It's resource-intensive. And it's intrusive upon the interest of those who are searched.

  So what he was broadcasting was that the department did not move automatically to that method, that it sought to obtain the material by subpoena first. The reporting has suggested that the department also sought to get it by consent previously, and that there was a back-and-forth and an effort to get it.

  But the reporting suggests that the material was not provided in its entirety. And for the department have taken the action that it did in obtaining the search warrant, it must have deemed that the material was so important that it had to recover it through this measure.

  And so I think, in that respect, Garland was trying to speak to some of the perhaps misinformation or incomplete information that has been in the public domain about what happened here.

  And then just the last thing I'd like to say on that is, there has been so much use of the word raid in the public domain, it's important to remind viewers that this was a lawfully executed search warrant, pursuant to a court-ordered warrant, where a judge found there was probable cause that crimes had been committed and evidence of them would be found on the residence.

  And it was executed pursuant to that court process.

• William Brangham:

  Jessica Roth, thank you so much for helping us wade through all this.

• Jessica Roth:

  My pleasure.