The Justice Department must respond to motions to unseal the warrant behind the FBI raid of Donald Trump’s home in Mar-a-Lago, the magistrate judge who approved the unprecedented search ordered Thursday.

Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart, who is believed to have signed the still-sealed FBI warrant approving the bureau’s Trump raid, said the Justice Department must now “file a Response to the Motion to Unseal” following efforts by Albany-based news outlet the Times Union and the conservative advocacy group Judicial Watch requesting that DOJ make the warrant public.

Reinhart said the DOJ’s response may be filed “ex parte and under seal as necessary to avoid disclosing matters already under seal,” meaning that the full response may be secret but that “the Government shall file a redacted Response in the public record” too.

PRESSURE BUILDS ON TRUMP AND BIDEN TO RELEASE MAR-A-LAGO SEARCH WARRANT

The Times Union lawyer wrote that FBI agents “applied for and received a search warrant in connection with an investigation that involved the residence of Donald J. Trump in Palm Beach” and that “I am filing this request seeking the unsealing request of these court records.”

Judicial Watch wrote that it is “investigating the potential politicization” of the FBI and DOJ and whether they are “abusing their law enforcement powers to harass a likely future political opponent of President Biden” and that “If the Court were to unseal the materials, Judicial Watch would obtain the materials, analyze them, and make them available to the public.”

Reinhart said that “the Government may file a consolidated Response to all Motions to Seal” and that DOJ will have until Monday to respond.

The magistrate judge came under considerable scrutiny on Tuesday over his connection to notorious sex offender Jeffery Epstein after multiple news outlets, including the Wall Street Journal and Politico, reported that he was the magistrate judge that signed off on the FBI’s raid of Mar-a-Lago.

Reinhart left his job as an assistant United States attorney on Jan. 1, 2008. The next day he began representing some of Epstein’s employees. He was accused in a lawsuit filed by two of Epstein’s victims of leaving the Justice Department to provide Epstein inside information, allegations that Reinhart denied, the Miami Herald reported in 2018.

The Southern District of Florida removed Reinhart’s page from its website on Tuesday afternoon after his connection to Epstein went viral on social media.

“Access denied,” Reinhart’s page now reads. “You are not authorized to access this page.”

Reinhart was appointed by district judges to his current position as a magistrate judge in 2018.

The magistrate judge previously recused himself from an ongoing civil lawsuit involving Trump and his 2016 presidential opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Trump sued Clinton, the Democratic National Committee, and numerous political entities and figures in March for promoting stories that alleged Trump was colluding with Russia during the 2016 election.

Reinhart recused himself from the case on June 22, citing a portion of U.S. Code that requires any magistrate judges to disqualify themselves if they have a “personal bias or prejudice concerning a party, or personal knowledge of disputed evidentiary facts concerning the proceeding.”

Reinhart did not specify in his recusal if the party he had a personal bias or prejudice towards was Trump, Clinton, or one or more of the dozens of other defendants in the lawsuit.

The Monday search by the FBI was reportedly related to boxes of materials Trump brought back with him to his Florida resort after leaving office. The National Archives and Records Administration said some presidential records in 15 boxes obtained from Mar-a-Lago earlier this year included materials marked as classified.

More than two days after the raid, the Justice Department and FBI have remained tight-lipped about the purpose and justification behind it, repeatedly declining to comment. The search warrant and FBI affidavit for the raid remain sealed.

President Joe Biden also didn’t respond to questions from reporters Tuesday when asked what Attorney General Merrick Garland had told him about the raid. Biden officials have said the White House was not informed about it beforehand. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to say whether Garland personally signed off on it.

Senior members of the Republican Party said they believe a double standard is on display with the Justice Department’s handling of its investigation into Hunter Biden compared to the Trump raid.

A host of congressional Republicans have condemned the raid and called upon Garland, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and the National Archives to provide answers about the search at Mar-a-Lago.

Trump called the raid “a surprise attack, POLITICS, and all the while our Country is going to HELL!” in a post on his Truth Social account on Wednesday.

Original Location: DOJ ordered to respond after requests to unseal FBI’s Trump raid warrant

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