MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell said Friday on “Hallie Jackson Reports” that the unsealed Department of Justice’s affidavit, which resulted in the FBI receiving a warrant to raid former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate showed the Justice Department believed they have “seen witness intimidation attempts, obstruction.”
Mitchell said, “Just the very fact that signals intelligence is exposed or is made vulnerable is enough reason to justify in most cases getting a search warrant right away, but in this case, this was already in January, asking the Trump lawyers and eventually a subpoena, the visit in June, at very high levels, you know, the top intelligence expert in the national security division going, also, of course, a senior U.S. attorney. Then, of course, the search warrant when it became very clear to them, and these a redactions, but clear to them that witnesses would be vulnerable if this were all released.”
She continued, “This was the affidavit that gave the judge a reason to cite probable cause of at least three possible potential crimes. This is probable cause. It does not mean this is beyond a reasonable doubt. It’s just probable cause to adjust search warrant.”
Mitchell said, “This affidavit as released the unredacted portions and certainly what we can infer from the run-up to the redacted portions, there was plenty of opportunity, it was more than a year since he left office, and lots of attempts to get real cooperation. Also, with specific language saying that if this were released in a fully unredacted form, it would compromise or intimate witnesses, multiple witnesses.”
She concluded, “So it tells you that this investigation has a lot of witnesses and a lot of people, and that there is evidence, that they say, is in the redacted portions, that there’s also been plenty of reason to believe they have already seen witness intimidation attempts, obstruction. ”
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