The Judge Who Approved Raid on Mar-A-Lago

Information is becoming available about the judge who signed the search warrant justifying the raid by the FBI on former president Donald Trump’s home in Mar-A-Lago. See the Townhall.com article Here’s What the Judge Who Approved Raid on Mar-A-Lago Said About Trump on Facebook. Note that the judge is not a judge. Bruce Reinhart, who reportedly approved the FBI’s search warrant to raid Mar-A-Lago, is a federal magistrate. So far, no information has been disclosed explaining how the Mar-A-Lago search warrant case was directed to Reinhart.

Reinhart was an Obama donor, vilified Trump on social media, and had dealings with representing colleagues and or employees of Jeffrey Epstein. Bruce Reinhart, the federal magistrate who reportedly approved the FBI’s search warrant to raid Mar-A-Lago, had already been noted for his previous “work” to help employees of Jeffrey Epstein secure immunity deals from the government. Reinhart had worked in the United States Attorney’s office, where he was supposedly helping the government prosecute Epstein and his employees for alleged sex trafficking. Reinhart then left the US Attorney’s office and opened his own law practice.

But now another nugget of information has illuminated Reinhart’s opinions about President Trump. According to the Townhall.com post, “Thanks to some sleuthing by Florida’s Voice, a Facebook account created in 2008 with the same name, linking to Reinhart’s previous private law firm, and listing West Palm Beach as his home address was uncovered along with some interesting posts by Reinhart.”

Townhall.com continued: “Thanks to an apparent failure to understand how Facebook works, or simply not caring about who saw his previous posts, most of Reinhart’s status updates are public and visible to anyone who finds his profile — including one posted days before President Trump took office in January 2021.” Referencing several Facebook archived posts, archived here, relating to posts by Dan Rather who took offense at President Trump’s tweets and some reference to the passing of John Lewis, Reinhart posted: “Thank you, Robert Reich, for saying what many of us feel. John Lewis is the conscience of America. Donald Trump doesn’t have the moral stature to kiss John Lewis’s feet.”

As the Townhall piece argues, that sentiment does not present Reinhart as a dispassionate objective magistrate to impartially judge the merits of a search warrant request that, if granted, would lead to a raid on Trump’s Mar-A-Lago.

Evidently, Reinhart has other Facebook posts that including one that explains “privilege.” Another post by Reinhart includes a complaint that “It’s embarrassing to live in a state that is less enlightened on criminal justice than Louisiana and Mississippi.”

FEC records show that Reinhart donated $1,000 to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign in 2008 and $500 to Republican Trump opponent Jeb Bush in 2015. Townhall asserts: “Those donations along with the newly-uncovered Facebook post confirms that Reinhart is no fan of President Trump, and calls into question his ability to fairly adjudicate legal matters involving Trump that come before him as a federal magistrate judge.”

See related article: New Details About Judge Who Approved Mar-A-Lago Raid Raises All Sorts of Red Flags posted on Townhall.com. In part, the article states: “In the hours since President Trump announced that his “Southern White House” Mar-A-Lago had been raided by the FBI, details on how the federal operation against the former president came to be were scant — but as more information about the raid’s approval comes to light, things are looking even worse for those going after Trump.”

Reporter Miranda Devine uncovered, a sealed search warrant was assigned to magistrate judge Bruce E. Reinhart, someone who has quite the legal history in Florida. Devine elaborates on Reinhart’s history in the U. S. Attorney’s office: Reinhart quit his job with the U.S. Attorney’s office — which was prosecuting crimes committed by Jeffrey Epstein — in order to start a private practice — through which he represented people who worked for Jeffrey Epstein against the government.”

The following information came from The Miami Herald: “On October 23, 2007, as federal prosecutors in South Florida were in the midst of tense negotiations to finalize a plea deal with accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, a senior prosecutor in their office quietly laying out plans to leave the U.S. attorney’s office after 11 years.”

Noteworthy is Reinhart’s behavior, which is arguably profoundly unethical: “On that date, as emails were flying between Epstein’s lawyers and federal prosecutors, Bruce E. Reinhart, now a federal magistrate, opened a limited liability company in Florida that established what would become his new criminal defense practice. The stated address, according to Florida state corporate records: 250 South Australian Ave., Suite 1400. It was the same location, and identical suite number, as that of Epstein’s lead attorney, Jack Goldberger.”

The Townhall article concludes: “By the end of the year, Reinhart had resigned his post in the Southern District of Florida. Within Days, on Jan. 2, 2008, he was hired to represent several of Epstein’s accused accomplices who would later, like Epstein, receive federal immunity for allegedly trafficking underage girls. So, Reinhart switched from working for the government and prosecuting Jeffrey Epstein and his associates for sex trafficking to… representing Jeffrey Epstein’s employees accused of sex trafficking against the government, a successful effort that saw his clients get immunity.” This is the Department of Justice led by Merrick Garland.