Former President Donald Trump mocked the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) heavily redacted search warrant affidavit that was used as the basis for the FBI raid of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
DOJ released the affidavit on Friday after Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart, who approved the search warrant, ordered the underlying affidavit to be unsealed on Thursday. However, the released affidavit was heavily redacted after Judge Reinhart found the federal government provided “good cause” to keep portions of the document under seal.
The redactions were put in place “in order to protect the safety of multiple civilian witnesses,” according to a DOJ filing.
Trump mocked the highly redacted document in a statement issued several hours after the affidavit was released.
“They missed a page,” Trump said, along with an edited version of the document that redacted all but four words: Make America Great Again.
In a statement issued earlier on Friday, Trump described the heavily redacted document as a “total public relations subterfuge by the FBI & DOJ.” Trump said:
Affidavit heavily redacted!!! Nothing mentioned on ‘Nuclear,’ a total public relations subterfuge by the FBI & DOJ, or our close working relationship regarding document turnover – WE GAVE THEM MUCH. Judge Bruce Reinhart should NEVER have allowed the Break-In of my home.
