About this episode
Donald Trump will not oppose the Justice Department’s motion to unseal the search warrant approved by a federal court in West Palm Beach on August 5 and a partially redacted property receipt listing the items seized during the FBI search. (The redactions, according to the government, “remove the names of law enforcement personnel who executed the search,” which seems to indicate that they do not remove any information about the items seized.) Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the government’s filing Thursday afternoon at an unusual two-minute briefing at the Department of Justice. His reason for unsealing the documents? “The department filed the motion to make public the warrant and receipt in light of the former president’s public confirmation of the search, the surrounding circumstances, and the substantial public interest in this matter.” It seems likely that Garland would not have asked the court to make the warrant and property receipt public if Trump had not gone nuclear with his accusations that the attorney general and FBI had weaponized law enforcement against him. Garland, as many observers put it, called Trump’s bluff. Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook newsletter Raghu Manavalan is the Host of POLITICO's Playbook. Jenny Ament is the Executive Producer of POLITICO Audio.