// Attorney General Merrick Garland just concluded a press conference informing the country that the Department of Justice has filed a motion to unseal the warrant that resulted in the FBI search at Mar-a-Lago this week. While the DOJ originally requested that the warrant be sealed — to protect Trump’s rights, according to Garland — now that Trump and his team have started ranting about it to the media, the DOJ is asking the court to unseal it.

In a nutshell, Republicans spent the last few days complaining that the DOJ refused to tell the world what was in the warrant — something Trump could have publicly disclosed at any point if he so wished — banking on the DOJ to remain silent while conspiratorial impulses took over. Merrick Garland politely decided to allow Trump to reap what he’s sown.

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In fact, it’s likely to get even more embarrassing for Trump. The motion concludes by inviting Trump to contest the effort to unseal the warrant, forcing a reckoning where the former president — who howled for several days about the DOJ’s secrecy — to go to court himself to keep it secret. Which he presumably will since the only imaginable reason why he hasn’t released it himself is a deep concern over its contents. [UPDATE: The judge has set a deadline of August 25 for Trump’s team to respond. UPDATE 2: Though they have until tomorrow to confer and decide IF they’re going to oppose.]

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The moral of this story is that whatever issues one may have with Merrick Garland’s administration of the Department of Justice — and we’ve had some of them in these pages — the man is not going to let the DOJ get bullied.

Here’s the motion.

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Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

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Crime, Department of Justice, Donald Trump, Government, Merrick Garland