In the daylight hours following the FBI raid on former President Donald Trump’s Florida home — Mar-a-Lago — reports revealed the judge who signed the sealed search warrant resigned as a federal prosecutor in 2007 before being hired to represent the accused co-conspirators of billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
Bruce Reinhart, now a federal magistrate, departed the U.S. Attorney’s office while they were negotiating the controversial plea bargain with Epstein.
He later appeared to switch sides, representing Epstein’s co-conspirators as reported by The Miami Herald including “Epstein’s pilots; his scheduler, Sarah Kellen; and Nadia Marcinkova, described by some victims as Epstein’s sex slave.”
Judge Bruce Reinhart Who OK-ed Trump’s Raid Represented Jeffrey Epstein’s Staff https://t.co/lq4UIX1v1r
— Ben Owen ??? (@hrkbenowen) August 9, 2022
The Herald wrote on Monday that a “source said FBI agents obtained a search warrant from a federal magistrate judge in West Palm Beach.” And Politico reported that the West Palm Beach U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida has three magistrate judges: Judge Bruce Reinhart, Judge William Matthewman and Judge Ryon McCabe.
Politico continued to explain that two sealed warrants were reportedly signed on Monday, and both were assigned to Reinhart, as shown in the court’s online portal. The warrant believed to be related to the Mar-a-Lago has continued to be updated throughout Tuesday.
The defection of Reinhart from the U.S. Attorney’s Office made news in 2019 following the arrest of Epstein as the connections between the U.S. Attorney’s Office and Epstein’s defense team drew intense criticism toward the plea deal and the attorneys involved.
Do Judge Reinhart’s Epstein ties hurt his credibility?
In 2019, Julie K. Brown, writing for The Herald, found that when Reinhart opened his legal practice, Florida records showed its business address as 250 South Australian Ave., Suite 1400.
This would turn out to be the very same location, and even the same suite number, as Epstein’s lead attorney, Jack Goldberger.
Subsequently, Reinhart’s clients — Epstein’s pilots, Sarah Kellen and Nadia Marcinkova — were shielded from prosecution alongside the billionaire as a part of the 2008 plea agreement.
Miami Herald reporters also implicated Reinhart in 2019 with a seeming conflict of interest, in addition to former top Epstein prosecutor and Trump Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta who resigned after the story was released.
The Herald revealed that Reinhart, in a 2011 sworn affidavit for a related civil case denied he did anything improper or unethical. He claimed under threat of perjury that he was not a part of the team who worked on the Epstein investigation and was therefore not privy to any confidential information about the case.
Reinhart’s claim was contradicted two years later when his former supervisors at the U.S. Attorney’s Office filed court documents stating “while Bruce E. Reinhart was an assistant U.S. attorney, he learned confidential, non-public information about the Epstein matter.”
Reinhart later denied any conflict of interest in an email to Herald reporters writing, “Even assuming I had participated ‘personally and substantially’ in the Epstein investigation [which I did not], the relevant Department of Justice regulations only prohibited me from communicating with, or appearing before, the United States on behalf of Mr. Epstein,’’
REPORT: Judge Behind Mar A Lago Raid Is Epstein-Linked, Obama Donor.https://t.co/UjBakshTtS
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) August 9, 2022
Fox News reported that Reinhart spent 10 years in private legal practice prior to becoming a magistrate judge in 2018.
Federal Election Commission records show that Reinhart donated twice to former President Barack Obama’s campaign in 2008 totaling $2,000 and also donated to Trump’s primary opponent Jeb Bush in 2015.
