Pressure is increasing to disclose the contents of the warrant that allowed the FBI to storm the gates of President Trump’s home —  Mar-a-Lago — and riffle through the belongings of a one-time president of the United States. 

Court filings disclose that a conservative nonprofit group, Judicial Watch, has filed a motion asking the magistrate judge who approved the warrant, Bruce Reinhart, to now allow its publication as “expeditiously as possible.” Judge Reinhart has in turn requested that the Department of Justice respond to the motion by August 15.

In its filing, Judicial Watch argues that it is investigating “the potential politicization of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Department of Justice and whether the FBI and the Justice Department are abusing their law enforcement powers to harass a likely future political opponent of President Biden.”

To that end, it seeks to “obtain the materials, analyze them, and make them available to the public.” It argues that “the public has an urgent and substantial interest in understanding the predicate for the execution of the unprecedented search warrant of the private residence of a former president and likely future political opponent.”   

In weighing whether to unseal a warrant or other materials, federal courts have prescribed a method that balances a common-law “historical presumption of access against any competing interest.” Judicial Watch maintains that in this case, those competing interests fail to cohere into a persuasive argument for secrecy. 

Courts have expounded that these interests could include “whether the records are sought for improper purposes, whether access is likely to promote public understanding of historically significant events, and whether the press has already been permitted substantial access to the contents of the records.”   

The Albany Times-Union, a newspaper, has also filed a request to unseal, and adds the argument that “the apparent subject of the search, Donald J. Trump, has full knowledge that the FBI searched his residence and that items, including business records and files, were seized.” His attorneys, they note, have access to the warrant, and so should the public.