WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — The release of the redacted Mar-a-Lago search warrant affidavit and what it contains is garnering mixed reactions.
Most can agree that the political fallout will continue at Mar-a-Lago in the days and weeks to come.
But there are varying opinions on what the redacted affidavit tells us and where this is all heading.
"I'm not so sure why the FBI wouldn’t have implemented less intrusive means of getting those documents back," said former FBI agent and criminal defense attorney Stuart Kaplan.
Kaplan weighed in Friday on the heavily redacted search warrant affidavit that contains important details about the government’s justification in the Aug. 8 search of Mar-a-Lago.
Former President Donald Trump called for the release of the affidavit without any redactions, but a federal judge released it with redacted portions.
The question is, what’s next, legally speaking?
"There is obviously maybe a grand jury investigation that has been impaneled to potentially consider evidence with respect to retention of these classified documents and whether or not he should or shouldn’t have been a part of that," said WPTV political analyst Brian Crowley. "But that being left aside, the president has questioned the validity and whether or not this was the proper means. He has filed his own separate lawsuit against the Department of Justice and that’s going to have to play out."
Crowley said we may not know everything at this point.
"Today we inched forward with the release of the affidavit and a lot of information still redacted, so there is a lot we don’t know. But we can expect politically this will remain a firestorm at the presidential level and all the way down to the state level," Crowley said.
The next few weeks will likely be full of political back and forth.
"One of the things we have to remember is that the founding fathers treated the presidency that once you left office, you are back to being a little "c" citizen," Crowley said. "So what the FBI and Justice Department are doing is not out of the ordinary for a citizen of this country. What the FBI and the Justice Department have to do now is to prove that their investigation is legitimate, that they followed through in the proper ways, and we will find that out as the weeks pass."
There is no timeline nailed down as far as how long this legal process will take.
