PACER Service Under Fire After Trump Affidavit Crash Reports

Many social media users questioned the PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records) service on Friday as some appeared to report the website crashing just before the affidavit for the search at former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence was released.

"PACER is, and always has been, a disaster. And the idea that Americans have been paying for it by the page is nuts," Twitter user Neal Katyal wrote.

Maggie Haberman of The New York Times responded to a tweet about PACER crashing and wrote, "When was the last time this many users were on PACER at once?"

Yashar Ali of New York magazine wrote, "PACER is and always has been a scourge."

Twitter user Tyler Olson of Fox News wrote, "PACER horribly crashing as court unseals Trump raid search warrant affidavit."

On the other hand, Tom Winter of NBC News explained that PACER "has not crashed."

Winter continued, "The docket which contains the Mar-A-Lago search warrant materials has become overloaded. This happens from time to time in high profile cases."

Journalist Kirstin Garriss wrote, "Live look at every reporter's laptop trying to access PACER right now," in response to a gif that appeared to show a dial-up process used by old computers.

Twitter user Blake Allen wrote, "This whole Trump affidavit stuff is going to fully pay for the student loan debt relief with the amount of money the feds are going to make off the PACER searches."

The reports of users experiencing issues while attempting to use PACER came shortly after the U.S. Department of Justice released a heavily redacted affidavit that was used in order to execute a search warrant at Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida earlier this month.

In a statement sent to Newsweek, a spokesperson for PACER said, "An affidavit related to the search of Mar-a-Lago that was filed by the Department of Justice in the Southern District of Florida on Friday, August 26, 2022, resulted in an unusually high volume of users trying to access the document on PACER, the Judiciary's public access portal. Some users may have experienced a delay in accessing the document because of the high volume, but the system remained up and running."

The statement continued, "Anticipating the high demand, the Southern District of Florida also posted the document to its website...which was up and running throughout the day, making the document readily available to non-PACER users and the public."

On August 8, FBI agents raided Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence in search of possibly classified documents that the former president reportedly took from the White House following his presidency.

The affidavit said, "There is probable cause to believe that additional documents that contain classified NDI [National Defense Information] or that are Presidential records subject to record retention requirements currently remain at the PREMISES." The affidavit also said that "evidence of obstruction" may be found at the former president's residence.

Following the release of the affidavit, Trump responded in a post on his social media platform, Truth Social.

"Affidavit heavily redacted!!! Nothing mentioned on 'Nuclear,' a total public relations subterfuge by the FBI & DOJ, or our close working relationship regarding document turnover - WE GAVE THEM MUCH. Judge Bruce Reinhart should NEVER have allowed the Break-In of my home. He recused himself two months ago from one of my cases based on his animosity and hatred of your favorite President, me. What changed? Why hasn't he recused himself on this case? Obama must be very proud of him right now!" Trump wrote in the post.

Update 8/29/22, 3:04 p.m. ET: This story was updated with a statement from PACER.