Filled with black bars, the affidavit released Friday — the FBI filing that led a Florida federal judge to grant a search warrant for Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago compound — reveals that the government wasn’t on a power trip when it sought permission to enter the premises. Rather, agents sought to search the former president’s residence only after establishing the very high likelihood that incredibly sensitive documents were still there and improperly safeguarded.

The suspicions began after Trump returned 15 boxes to the National Archives in January. Commingled among keepsakes and newspaper clippings, and seemingly not organized in any fashion, were 184 documents with classification markings. Some were designated “HCS,” a category of highly sensitive information; others related to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Several appeared to have Trump’s handwriting.

When the government inquired about this, Trump’s lawyer asserted that the ex-president had supreme declassification authority. It is not, however, so simple, especially with respect to certain types of government secrets.

This — and, very significantly, tips received from what the government in its memo arguing for aggressive redactions called “a significant number of civilian witnesses” — led the Justice Department to believe that more highly classified documents remained vulnerable, in violation of the law, and that evidence of obstruction of justice was also to be found.

Much of the affidavit is blacked out, preventing anyone from knowing the identity of these sources and the nature of the information that got the feds over the probable cause hurdle. While it’s vitally important to protect witnesses and an ongoing investigation, it is also frustrating that even the reasons for most of the redactions have themselves been redacted, with the exception of three made to protect agent safety. It would’ve been helpful to see “witness safety” or “investigative methods” listed as rationales, for instance, rather than black bar after black bar.

But it’s evident the feds gave the judge a detailed rationale. This further undermines Trump’s shrieking about a witch hunt. In this case, the only thing that is unbecoming of a rule-of-law democracy is an ex-leader breathlessly spinning baseless conspiracy theories.