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Hello and welcome to The Daily Beans for Thursday and November 3, 2022. Today, the Department of Justice has granted limited use immunity for Cosh Patel. In the clearest sign yet, they are targeting Trump directly.

Politico gets the eight Eastman emails due to a court filing error. Hillary sues Donald and Alina Habba for $1 million in sanctions for their frivolous lawsuit. The U.S. is exploring whether it can investigate the Elon Saudi Twitter deal and the Trump organization settles out of court in the case where security assaulted protesters. I'm your host, Allison Gil.

Hi, everyone. Absolutely huge news just dropping with the Cosh Patel immunity. We were talking about it yesterday a little bit on the beans and then earlier today, Hugo Lowell put out a story in the Guardian that they were considering it and we just got now just the same day hours later confirmation that an order has been issued. So very big news. Also later in the show, I'm going to be talking with Brad Jenkins from the AAP.

I victory fund with the midterms right around the corner. I want to talk to him. And Danny will be back tomorrow. So yeah, I miss her when she's gone. I know you do too. We have a lot of news to get to. So let's hit the hot notes hot notes.

All right. So I'm going to read you the way that the show was scripted before this breaking news came out from Hugo Lowell at the Guardian. The Justice Department is weighing whether to grant immunity to Trump advisor Cosh Patel and forces testimony about claims that highly sensitive government documents the FBI sees during the search warrant execution at Mar-a-Lago were declassified. And that was according to sources familiar with the matter earlier today. Then from the Wall Street Journal, we found out that Cosh Patel has been granted.

Immunity limited use immunity from the Department of Justice and that the order to compel him to testify has been issued the status of the documents has emerged as relevant to the criminal investigation surrounding Trump's mishandling of the national security materials because that could strengthen a potential case that the former president was in violation of state secrecy laws.

Trump advisors such as Patel have claimed repeatedly since the search in August that the documents bearing classification markings found that the property had in fact been declassified before the former president to part of the White House.

The claims that the documents were declassified have not been supported by any evidence though and Trump's lawyers have not repeated the assertions in related legal disputes before a judge or in court filings where they could face penalties for lying about it.

Justice Department officials are examining whether to allow federal prosecutors to seek an order from the chief US district court judge that's barrel how granting him limited use immunity and now we know that they have and the judge has signed the order and that will compel his testimony on the declassification issue and other matters according to sources.

This consideration for immunity for Patel appears to center on the fact that as one of Trump's appointed representatives with the national archives he could offer a material insight into the nature of the documents and how the former president regarded the records if he knew they were declassified did he actually think they were declassified did he say they were declassified probably not also if if gosh Patel lies to the grand jury then he will be subject to a one thousand and one charge which is you know jail.

So there's no one on the ladder between gosh and Trump this is the clearest indication that I was I think I was right when I said when garland was taking those three weeks to decide whether not to sign off on the search warrant from Mara Lago I said he wasn't deciding whether to sign off on just the search warrant he was deciding whether or not he would be willing to prosecute because if that search turned up fruits of a crime.

He you know he would need to he would need to prosecute and so that's what I think is happening here and they've brought on David Raskin one of the best sip a trial lawyers in America and now they have the limited use immunity that means he's not simply looking to get the documents back right this isn't about garland saying hey just please tell us where the rest of the stuff is we just want the stuff back that's not what is happening here he's looking to prosecute and if they have an ironclad case if they can get what they need from gosh Patel.

I think they'll go forward with the at least the espionage part the obstruction parts already sort of clear right and the 2071 concealment of documents already kind of clear.

But the classification status is what bears you know on whether or not espionage can be charged and the guys of politico got their hands on the eight Eastman emails that had to be turned over the January 6th committee under the crime fraud exception this is the latest batch there been previous batches.

And they got the they got the emails from a link that Eastman's lawyers failed to deactivate in a late night department of justice filing last night here's the story from from Nicholas Wu Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstina politico Donald Trump's attorneys saw a direct appeal to Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas as their best hope of derailing Biden's win in the 2020 election according to emails newly disclosed to congressional investigators quote we want to frame things.

So that Thomas could be the one to issue some sort of stay or other circuit justice opinion saying Georgia is in legitimate doubt.

That is Trump attorney Kenneth cheesebroe in a December 31st 2020 email to Trump's legal team cheesebroe contended that Thomas would be quote our only chance to get a favorable judicial opinion by January 6th which might hold up the Georgia count in Congress.

Quote I think I agree with this Eastman replied later that morning suggesting that a favorable move by Thomas or other justices would quote kick the Georgia legislature into gear to help overturn the election results.

The messages were part of a batch of eight emails obtained by politico that Eastman had sought to withhold from the January 6th committee he filed.

Appeal after appeal give me more time I need another thing and then after they got after they got the emails he's like they I had an appeal pending and send him back to me destroy him shred him he was desperate to keep these out of the hands of investigators house general counsel Doug letter acknowledged Wednesday afternoon that his office effectively released the messages by including a link to them in copies of messages publicly filed with the ninth circuit court of appeals.

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