San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
Peter Navarro never stops being Peter Navarro
A federal judge has become familiar with the Peter Navarro San Diegans know all too well.
Ever since Navarro’s role in the effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election surfaced — largely through his public boasting about it — his heightened sense of self-image, defiant nature and smarter-than-the-rest attitude has been on national display.
On Thursday, the extrade adviser to former President Donald Trump was sentenced to four months in prison after his September conviction on two misdemeanor counts of criminal contempt of Congress.
In what was described as a testy exchange with Navarro’s lawyers by The New York Times, Judge Amit P. Mehta criticized Navarro for flouting a congressional subpoena while other Trump aides negotiated whether to comply.
“I have a great deal of respect for your client and what he’s achieved professionally, I do,” the judge said. “Which makes it all the more disappointing, the way he behaved.”
Disappointing, maybe. Unexpected, probably not.
After all, this was a former serial candidate who called himself “the cruelest and meanest son of a (expletive) who ever ran for public office in San Diego” in his autobiography, “San Diego Confidential.”
He added, seemingly with pride, “I still have some principles, but not as many as you might think because I don’t have any concern at all about making stuff up about my opponent that isn’t exactly true.”
Keep in mind that he very nearly became mayor of San Diego in 1992, losing a close race to Susan Golding.
On one level, Judge Mehta had a point about Navarro’s achievements: Top White House aide. Respected economics professor at UC San Diego, the University of San Diego and later at UC Irvine. Author of several books.
But the judge probably wasn’t thinking about Navarro’s values-challenged journey careening down a fruitless political path as a Republican, independent, Democrat and back again.
In San Diego, he ran for mayor, City Council and
county supervisor over three years and then Congress two years later in 1996. He ran in a City Council special election in 2001, receiving 7.85 percent of the vote. He started becoming a local political punchline, and soon fell off the local the radar.
Then in December 2016, he was named to the newly created position of director of the White House National Trade Council by Trump.
Navarro holds the unique distinction of having been politically aligned with Trump and Hillary Clinton, who endorsed Navarro when he ran for Congress as a Democrat.
According to Vanity Fair, Navarro, who is virulently anti-china like Trump, came to the administration’s attention when Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner was cruising Amazon’s
website. Kushner reportedly was struck by the title of a book co-authored by Navarro called “Death to China.”
As for Navarro’s penchant for “making stuff up,” that doesn’t only apply to political opponents.
After being flushed out by an academic, Navarro admitted in 2019 that he concocted quotes in some of his books from a person who does not exist in order to buttress his views. The fictitious person’s name: Ron Vara, which is an anagram of Navarro.
Navarro was similarly cheeky about putting one over on people after being busted for what most people might consider a serious ethical breach.
He called Ron Vara a “whimsical device and pen name I’ve used throughout the years for opinions and purely entertainment value, not as a source of fact.” He said it was “refreshing that somebody finally figured out an inside joke that has been hiding in plain sight for years.”
Never one to miss the opportunity to cast himself in a grand context, Navarro compared his Vara to “Alfred Hitchcock appearing brief ly in cameo in his movies.”
Navarro, who plans to
appeal the conviction and sentence, created the boiling cauldron he now finds himself in.
He was like a would-be bank robber thinking he had nearly pulled off the perfect heist, and couldn’t resist telling everyone how clever he was. Navarro did so in a book and, in promoting the book, numerous interviews.
“The thing started flawlessly,” Navarro told me in January 2022.
Ironically, he maintains the plan collapsed because of the assault on the Capitol a year earlier that was also aimed at denying Biden his
legitimate victory. (Despite evidence to the contrary, Navarro insisted Trump did not foment that rebellion.)
He said the strategy to overturn the election was named the Green Bay Sweep after a play by the National Football League team. Under the plan Navarro said he devised with former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, Republican House members were to challenge election results in six swing states and pressure then-vice President Mike Pence to assist in overturning the results.
Pence refused and later said he did not have the constitutional authority to do that.
The contention by Trump, Navarro and others that widespread election fraud gave Joe Biden the election has been debunked by every legitimate review of the voting. No election in U.S. history has been more scrutinized. Despite Trump’s yammering and what his followers may believe, he lost the election, fair and square.
When his role in the election scheme first became public, Navarro said he hadn’t heard from the select congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and the effort to overturn Biden’s victory.
Remarkably, Navarro suggested the committee was afraid of him because he would blow up the investigation.
“They don’t want any part of me. I exonerate Trump and Bannon,” he told The Daily Beast.
That was before he received a committee subpoena, of course. He later said, among other things, that Trump directed him not to comply with the subpoena, and that he was shielded by executive privilege. That didn’t stand up in court.
Before Judge Mehta on Thursday, Navarro seemed to suggest that someone of his prowess could only be undone by being unfairly overmatched.
“I’m a Harvard-educated gentleman, but the learning curve when they come at you with the biggest law firm in the world is very, very steep,” Navarro said.
Like Trump, Navarro contends his prosecution was the result of a political conspiracy. For that, he was dressed down by Mehta.
“Nancy Pelosi’s not responsible for your prosecution. Joe Biden’s not responsible for your prosecution,” Mehta said. “It’s those kinds of statements from somebody who knows better . . . that contributes to why our politics are so corrosive.”
In the end, Navarro brings to mind an an old adage: Maybe he’s too smart for his own good.
What they said
Joe Garofoli (@joegarofoli) of the San Francisco Chronicle on X.
“Describing (Steve) Garvey’s debate performance as deer-in-the-headlights is a disservice to deer in headlights.”