Donald Trump loyalist Kash Patel is set to testify before a federal grand jury investigating the handling of classified documents at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago resort, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Patel, a top adviser to the ex-president, is expected to testify after receiving immunity from prosecution over the information he reveals in his testimony, people familiar with the matter told the Journal on Wednesday.
A federal judge ruled that the Justice Department could not force the outspoken Trump defender to testify unless he had received such a protection. When Patel appeared before the grand jury last month, he refused to answer any questions and repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment rights.
The grand jury Patel is expected to appear before is looking into the possible mishandling of highly classified documents that FBI agents removed in August from Mar-a-Lago, which is now Trump’s primary residence. Patel, whom Trump named as one of his representatives to the National Archives when he left office, asserted after the search that Trump had declassified those documents when he left office before they were brought to his Florida resort.
“The bottom line was [Trump] said this information has to get out to the American public,” Patel said at the time.
Some of the documents gathered contained highly sensitive U.S. intelligence about Iran and China, people familiar with the matter told The Washington Post last month.
Patel, who published a children’s book pushing conspiracy theories about the 2020 election this year, was outraged when an affidavit the DOJ released after the search did not have his name redacted.
“Today marks another vicious attack from DOJ/FBI who intentionally jeopardized my safety by un-redacting my name in the most reviewed search warrant in the history of the United States,” he wrote on Trump’s social media platform, Truth Social.
The sources who spoke with the Journal added that other Trump associates have also been offered immunity in exchange for their testimony.
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