The adviser, Kash Patel, had previously declined to answer questions from prosecutors in front of a federal grand jury, citing his Fifth Amendment rights.
The Justice Department offered on Wednesday to allow Kash Patel, a close adviser to former President Donald J. Trump, to testify to a federal grand jury under a grant of immunity about Mr. Trump’s handling of highly sensitive presidential records, two people familiar with the matter said.
The offer of immunity came about a month after Mr. Patel invoked his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination in front of the grand jury and refused to answer questions from prosecutors investigating whether Mr. Trump improperly took national security documents with him when he left the White House and subsequently obstructed attempts by the government to retrieve them.
During Mr. Patel’s initial grand jury appearance, one of the people familiar with the matter said, Judge Beryl A. Howell of Federal District Court in Washington acknowledged Mr. Patel’s Fifth Amendment claims and said the only way he could be forced to testify was if the government offered him immunity.
The decision by the Justice Department to grant immunity in the case, the person said, effectively cleared the way for the grand jury to hear Mr. Patel’s testimony.
A spokesman for the Justice Department declined to comment.
The disclosure that Mr. Patel has received immunity for his testimony comes as prosecutors have increased their pressure on recalcitrant witnesses who have declined to answer investigators’ questions or have provided them with potentially misleading accounts about Mr. Trump’s handling of documents.
What to Know About the Trump Investigations
Numerous inquiries. Since leaving office, former President Donald J. Trump has been facing several investigations into his business dealings and political activities. Here is a look at some notable cases:
Prosecutors have indicated they are skeptical of the level of cooperation they have gotten from a little-known Trump aide named Walt Nauta, who has provided the authorities with different accounts about whether he moved documents stored at Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. The authorities are using the specter of charges against him for misleading investigators to persuade him to sit again for questioning.
The prosecutors want to question Mr. Patel about an array of matters related to the documents. Among them is an unsubstantiated claim Mr. Patel has publicly made in recent months that Mr. Trump had declassified national security documents he took when he left the White House.
If Mr. Patel’s claims were true, it could make a prosecution of Mr. Trump more challenging and less appealing to Justice Department officials, who would want as strong a case as possible if they move forward with an indictment.
Mr. Patel has long been a part of efforts to fight off the Justice Department investigations into Mr. Trump and his allies. Earlier this year, as officials were pushing Mr. Trump to return records he had taken to Mar-a-Lago when he left office, Mr. Trump made him one of his representatives to the National Archives and Records Administration to deal with his records.
Legal experts say prosecutors try to avoid giving witnesses immunity, especially in high-profile cases, because it makes it much more difficult to prosecute the individual who received it. But prosecutors often ask a judge to grant it when they are confronted with a witness who has information that they believe is essential to completing the investigation.
Despite the government’s signaling that Mr. Patel was only a witness — not a subject of the investigation — he still refused to cooperate, and a federal judge declined to go along with an effort by prosecutors to compel his testimony. By removing the possibility that he could be charged with a crime based on evidence revealed through his testimony, the grant of immunity essentially made moot Mr. Patel’s Fifth Amendment claims.
Mr. Patel has increased his influence with Mr. Trump since the end of the presidency, maintaining his criticisms of the investigation into whether the Trump campaign conspired with Russia in the 2016 campaign.
Earlier this year, Mr. Patel told associates that he was expected to take on an even more central role in Mr. Trump’s legal defenses, currently coordinated by another Trump adviser, Boris Epshteyn, according to a person familiar with his comments.
In an appearance on Monday on “The Benny Show,” a pro-Trump podcast, Mr. Patel was asked whether he would accept a position as F.B.I. director if Mr. Trump were elected president in 2024.
“I’m all in with the boss, and you know that,” Mr. Patel said. “First, I tell people, let’s win the midterms. And then let’s see what he does and, you know, you and I think I know what he’s going to do. And then it’s a two-year lift and you know what, they’re going to come after us.”
Source: Elections - nytimes.com
