WASHINGTON (NewsNation) — The Justice Department’s search warrant and investigation at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate is not transparent enough for the general public or enough to ease partisan divides, a former top federal prosecutor says.
The FBI searched the former president’s Palm Beach estate earlier this week with U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland asking to unseal the federal warrant used, citing “substantial public interest in this matter.”
Trump called Thursday for the “immediate” release of the federal warrant, posting on his Truth Social outlet, “Release the documents now!”
Trump has until 3 p.m. ET Friday to challenge the release.
It’s unclear at this point how much information would be included in the documents, if made public, or if they would encompass an FBI affidavit that would presumably lay out a detailed factual basis for the search. The department specifically requested the unsealing of the warrant as well as a property receipt listing the items that were seized, along with two unspecified attachments.
Former prosecutor and legal analyst Ankush Khardori weighed in on “Morning in America,” saying that more transparency is needed.
“I don’t think it’s enough [transparency]. My concern is that we have had this problem with every investigation regarding Trump, which is that the coverage and even the Justice Department’s approach seems pitched to the political extremes, the people who are following political news extremely closely, which tend to be highly partisan people or people who are like, have the time to be extremely politically engaged.” Khardori said. “My concern is there are a lot of people I imagined throughout the country who are of all ages, anxious about what happened, curious about what happened, worried about what happened, who don’t fall in the camp of, you know, necessarily ardent Trump supporters or ardent, you know, supporters of the Biden White House, who deserved to have their sort of concerns addressed, not simply, you know, the loudest voices on the left or the right.”
Khardori said while the release could be helpful for transparency, the partisan divide could drown out the potential bombshell news in the search warrant.
“Nothing the attorney general can say will placate Mr. Trump or his most ardent supporters, who will likely criticize Mr. Garland for saying too little or too much, regardless of what he does,” Khardori wrote in a New York Times opinion piece.
You can see Khardori’s full interview with “Morning in America” in the player above.