Legal expert explains redacted affidavit in Trump Mar-A-Lago search

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – With former President Trump’s affidavit being publicly released just a few days ago, a lot of the information in the document is still not available to read. Across the 32-page document, the majority of the information is redacted with black lines. 

KOB’s legal expert and UNM law professor, Josh Kastenberg, explained why the public release of this document was unusual.

“Normally affidavits don’t get released to the public at this stage the public,” Krastenberg said. 

The Justice Department has different reasons for censoring most of this document. 

“The affidavit was released to the extent it could be,” Kastenberg said. 

He also explained that parts of it were top secret. 

“If information were to be released it could be considerable harm to the national security of the United States.”

There are numerous possibilities of what could come next in this investigation. 

“One possibility is that information was recovered that should not have been in the president’s possession that violated the Presidential Records Act and is a crime but is a very low-lying crime so maybe nothing happens,” Krastenberg said. “There could be an indictment against the former president and others on his staff which could lead to a criminal trial or some type of negotiation.”

While this case is still ongoing, the extent of its impact is big.

“A judge once used the refrain, “the king is not above the law.” Well if King George III can’t be above the law then neither can a president or former president,” Krastenberg said.