US indicts ex-Trump aide Navarro
Contempt charges for defying Jan. 6 panel subpoena
WASHINGTON — Former Trump White House official Peter Navarro was indicted Friday on contempt charges after defying a subpoena from the House panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Navarro is former President Donald Trump’s second aide to be charged with contempt of Congress for refusing to cooperate with the investigation. His arrest comes months after the indictment of former White House adviser Steve Bannon.
Navarro, 72, was charged with one contempt count for failing to appear for a deposition before the House committee and a second charge for failing to produce documents the committee requested.
During an initial court appearance on Friday, Navarro alleged that the Justice Department had committed “prosecutorial misconduct” and said that he was told he could not contact anyone after he was approached by an FBI agent at the airport on Friday and put in handcuffs. He said he was arrested while trying to board a flight to Nashville, Tennessee, for a television appearance.
“Who are these people? This is not America,” Navarro said. “I was a distinguished public servant for four years!”
During the hearing, he
said the House committee was a “sham committee” and that prosecutors were “playing hardball” and were “despicable.” If convicted, each charge carries a minimum sentence of a month in jail and a maximum of a year behind bars.
The indictment underscores that the Justice Department is continuing to pursue criminal charges against Trump associates who have attempted to impede or stonewall the work of congressional investigators examining the most significant attack on U.S. democracy in decades.
But later on Friday, the Justice Department
declined to charge Mark Meadows and Dan Scavino, two other top officials who have also refused to cooperate.
The pair engaged in weeks of negotiations with the committee’s lawyers, and Meadows, Trump’s former chief of staff, turned over more than 9,000 documents to the panel, before the House voted to charge them with contempt.
A spokesperson for the DOJ did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A lawyer for Scavino, a Trump adviser, declined to comment.
The indictment against Navarro alleges that, when
summoned to appear before the committee for a deposition, he refused to do so and told the panel that because Trump had invoked executive privilege, “my hands are tied.”
After committee staff told him they believed there were topics he could discuss without raising any executive privilege concerns, Navarro again refused, according to the indictment. The committee went ahead with its deposition on March 2, but he did not attend.
The indictment came days after Navarro revealed in a court filing that he also had been subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury this week as part of the Justice Department’s sprawling probe into the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
“This was a preemptive strike by the prosecution against that lawsuit,” Navarro told Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui during his court appearance. “It simply flies in the face of good faith and due process.”
Navarro, who was a trade adviser to Trump, said he was served the subpoena by the FBI at his Washington, D.C., home last week. The subpoena was the first known instance of prosecutors seeking testimony from someone who worked in the Trump White House as they investigate the attack. Prosecutors said the indictment was handed down Thursday night.
Navarro made the case in his lawsuit Tuesday that the House select committee investigating the attack is unlawful and therefore a subpoena it issued to him in February is unenforceable under law.
He filed the suit against members of the committee, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, DCalif., and the U.S. attorney in Washington, Matthew Graves, whose office is now handling the criminal case against him.
In an interview with The Associated Press this week, Navarro said the goal of his lawsuit is much broader than the subpoenas themselves, part of an effort to have “the Supreme Court address a number of issues that have come with the weaponization of Congress’ investigatory powers” since Trump entered office.
Members of the select committee sought testimony from Navarro about his public efforts to help Trump overturn the 2020 presidential election, including a call trying to persuade state legislators to join their efforts.
Navarro has refused to cooperate with the committee, and he and fellow Trump adviser Dan Scavino were found in contempt of Congress in April.
Members of the committee made their case at the time that Scavino and Navarro were among just a handful of people who had rebuffed the committee’s requests and subpoenas for information.