The FBI’s search of former President Donald Trump’s private residence at Mar-a-Lago highlights the deep distrust many Americans feel for the nation’s essential political institutions. The Department of Justice, for its own sake and the good of the country, must be as transparent as possible about every aspect of this unprecedented move.
Handled well, this could be one of the greatest triumphs in the department’s history. Handled poorly, it may go down as one of its worst disasters.
Attorney General Merrick Garland’s candid remarks on Thursday, coupled with the Justice Department’s motion to unseal the search warrant and release a redacted list of seized materials, is a very encouraging step. Mr. Trump signaled that he would not object, and a judge granted the DOJ’s motion in a timely manner. This has cleared some of the uncertainty and suspicion that hangs over the process, but also opened up more areas of legitimate public interest.
There are more relevant documents that Mr. Garland’s department has not yet moved to unseal. A media consortium, consisting of the Washington Post, CNN, NBC News and the E. W. Scripps Company, has filed a motion in federal court to reveal all the documents related to the search, including the affidavit federal agents submitted to the judge who approved the search warrant.
That document would include more information about the justification for the search and the underlying investigation. It would help the public to understand straight from the government, rather than from leaks and innuendo, why raiding an ex-president’s residence was necessary. The Justice Department should support this petition, and the court should unseal these documents without unnecessary delay.
The Mar-a-Lago search has opened a new and dangerous phase in the Trump post-presidency. It’s impossible to overstate the distrust that many Americans feel toward their national institutions, and toward each other. Everyday people feel betrayed, rightly or wrongly, by institutions they have trusted, even revered, for most of their lives. This distrust percolates especially on the right — where increasingly violent rhetoric incited Thursday’s deadly standoff at Cincinnati’s FBI offices — but many on the left feel it too, as do many politically moderate Americans.
Meanwhile, the establishment left has traditionally distrusted federal law enforcement. They remembered, among other things, the FBI’s harassment of the Civil Rights and antiwar movements, much of it illegal. But some of them now treat doubts about the motivations or probity of federal authorities as unpatriotic and extremist. This attitude only reinforces to those inclined to suspicion that they are right to distrust not just the FBI, but the government more generally.
As the famous legal dictum has it: “Justice should not only be done but should manifestly and undoubtedly be seen to be done.” This is especially important in a case like this, with its massive social and political implications. The Attorney General can short-circuit the distrust so many Americans feel by making an act of trust in the people: joining the media consortium in asking the courts to unseal the Mar-a-Lago search affidavit.
Update: This editorial was updated on Aug. 12 at 4:37 p.m. to reflect the unsealing of the search warrant and receipt by a federal judge.
First Published: August 12, 2022, 5:11 p.m.
