Kash Patel, a one-time aide to former President Donald Trump, will testify before a federal grand jury investigating the recovery of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago after being granted immunity from prosecution, The Wall Street Journal reported.
According to a federal judge, the Justice Department was unable to compel Patel to testify if his statements could be used against him by prosecutors in the future. The Journal's sources note that this ruling allows Patel to answer questions from the grand jury. Patel previously appeared before the grand jury last month, but he invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in response to the questions posed to him.
The newspaper notes that the government could potentially charge Patel in the future based on new information discovered independent of his testimony. Patel, an attorney representing him, and a spokesperson for the Justice Department either did not respond or declined to respond to requests for comment from the Journal.
Patel worked as an aide in the Trump administration in the White House and the Pentagon. He has publicly said that Trump broadly declassified documents upon leaving the White House.
"Trump declassified whole sets of materials in anticipation of leaving government that he thought the American public should have the right to read themselves," Patel said in an interview with Breitbart News in May. "I was there with President Trump when he said, 'We are declassifying this information.'"
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