Today, the Department of Justice has asked a judge not to unseal the affidavit behind the search warrant for Mar-a-Lago, saying that it “implicates highly classified materials,” and that disclosing the affidavit right now would “cause significant and irreparable damage to this ongoing criminal investigation.” CNN, the Washington Post, NBC News, and Scripps all asked the judge to unseal all documents related to the Mar-a-Lago search. But, “[i]f disclosed,” the Justice Department wrote, “the affidavit would serve as a roadmap to the government’s ongoing investigation, providing specific details about its direction and likely course, in a manner that is highly likely to compromise future investigative steps.”
Legal analyst and Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe commented: “This suggests [the Department of Justice] wasn’t just repatriating top secret doc[ument]s to get them out of Trump’s unsafe clutches but is pursuing a path looking toward criminal indictment.”
Got that? The affidavit from Dept of Justice that was so complete and convincing that a judge signed a search warrant for the home of a former President must be kept secret because to disclose it would endanger future criminal indictments. “Future criminal indictments” — which means that Dept of Justice is prepared to indict Trump for serious crimes. About time.