After former President Trump said the warrant authorizing the FBI to search his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida should be publicly released, the Department of Justice told the court Friday that his lawyers won't object to releasing the documents.
Driving the news: Responding to Merrick Garland's request to a federal court earlier Thursday to unseal parts of the warrant that the attorney general personally approved, Trump said in a statement: "Release the documents now!"
What he's saying: "Not only will I not oppose the release of documents related to the unAmerican, unwarranted, and unnecessary raid … I am going a step further by ENCOURAGING the immediate release of those documents," Trump said.
Context: U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart had given the Justice Department until 3 p.m. Friday to notify him of whether Trump's attorneys opposed the unsealing of the warrant and property receipt.
Of note: CNN, NBC News, the Washington Post and E.W. Scripps Company filed a motion Thursday seeking to have "all probable cause affidavits filed in support of the search warrant" of Trump's Palm Beach residence unsealed due to "the historic importance of these events."
- Public access to the records "will promote public understanding of this historically significant, unprecedented execution of a search warrant in the residence of a former President," the outlets said in the filing.
Go deeper: Presidential Records Act and Trump search explained
Editor's note: This article has been updated with new details throughout.
