WASHINGTON — A federal judge has ordered the Department of Justice to publicly release a significantly less-redacted version of the 2020 search warrant executed to seize North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr’s cellphone as part of an investigation into the Republican lawmaker’s stock trades at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Los Angeles Times, which sought the release of the document in court, had pushed for more information after the department released a heavily redacted search warrant and accompanying affidavit in June by order of the court. The affidavit 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 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.”
