WASHINGTON — The Justice Department on Friday made public a search warrant it used to obtain Sen. Richard M. Burr’s cellphone in 2020 as part of an investigation into his stock trades at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The department released the search warrant and accompanying affidavit in response to a lawsuit brought by the Los Angeles Times. Much of the affidavit was heavily redacted and provided few insights into the evidence the FBI had gathered and used to obtain permission from a federal judge to seize the phone.
Justice Department attorneys argued in court papers filed Friday that much of the information should remain blacked out, in part, because it includes “extensive details of interviews with private third-party witnesses whose role in the investigation is not publicly known.” The Justice Department, which had fought the disclosure of the records for more than a year, lost a recent key appeals court ruling that set the stage for their release.
