[Do you not have it upside down?]
Affidavits for warrants are typically sworn to by federal agents and are used to convince judges that it is worth invading someone’s privacy to collect proof of violations of the law. The affidavit supporting the search warrant for Trump’s home and members-only club presumably contains things like the specific laws that the government believes were broken and a brief narrative of the inquiry into Trump’s storage of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.
It also likely includes a recitation of other methods — like grand jury subpoenas — that the government sought to use to retrieve the documents in an effort to convince the judge that the search warrant was necessary.
Search warrant affidavits are almost never made public before charges and often remain permanently under seal if charges are never filed. However, once prosecutors open a criminal case, any warrant affidavits used during the inquiry will generally be turned over to the defense — although not in a public manner — as part of the discovery process.
As remarkable as it was for the Justice Department to ask a federal judge Thursday to unseal the warrant it used this week to search Mar-a-Lago, former President Donald Trump’s private residence in Florida, the materials that prosecutors have agreed...
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