By noon on Friday, America, and President Trump, will start to glimpse at least some of what Judge Bruce Reinhart and Attorney General Garland already know in respect of the case building against the 45th president in connection with documents found at Mar-a-Lago. 

That reality came into focus when Judge Reinhart on Thursday issued an “Order to Unseal,” directing the Department of Justice to release a redacted form of the hitherto sealed affidavit.  The order came in response to a request mounted by an armada of press organizations. 

While ordering the release of the affidavit, Judge Reinhart was persuaded that the DOJ demonstrated “good cause” to redact passages from the affidavit that would expose “the identities of witnesses, law enforcement agents, and uncharged parties,” as well as “the investigation’s strategy, direction, scope, sources, and methods” and “grand jury information.”

The DOJ has opposed unsealing the affidavit in any form, claiming that move would “cause significant and irreparable damage to this ongoing criminal investigation,” a position toward which Judge Reinhart has expressed skepticism.

Judge Reinhart attributed that skepticism to “the intense public and historical interest in an unprecedented search of a former president’s residence.” However, in accepting the proposed redactions, it is likely that interest will not be quenched. 

Mr. Trump has this week moved on a separate legal front, filing a “Motion for Judicial Oversight and Additional Relief” with Judge Aileen Cannon, who sits in the Southern District of Florida. While she was appointed to the judiciary by Mr. Trump, she has thus far taken a by-the-book approach.  

That motion requested an independent arbiter to sift through the documents found at Mar-a-Lago to cull the ones protected by privilege. Judge Cannon has imposed a Friday deadline for Mr. Trump’s legal team to elaborate on their arguments for her intervention at this early juncture in the case.