Washington — Former President Donald Trump’s White House trade advisor peter navarro On Thursday, he was found guilty of two counts of contempt of Congress for failing to comply with a subpoena from a House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
A Washington, D.C., jury convicted the former Trump administration official after a trial that lasted just over a day. Mr. Navarro’s defense team called no witnesses.
Sentencing is scheduled for January, and Navarro faces up to a year in prison and a $100,000 fine for each charge. Navarro and his lawyers met with reporters outside court, where prosecutors said they wanted to appeal the ruling, calling it a “groundbreaking case” on separation of powers.
Prosecutors allege Navarro “acted above the law” when he defied a request for documents and testimony from the House Select Committee that expired in February 2022. At the time, Congressional investigators were interested in Mr. Navarro’s efforts to develop a deferral plan. Certification of 2020 Presidential Election Results.
“Congress believed Mr. Navarro had information about what happened on January 6 and, more specifically, why it happened,” government prosecutor John Crabb said Wednesday. told the jury in his opening argument that a subpoena was not an “invitation.” “Requirements”.
What happened in Navarro’s short trial?
Nearly three years after the 2020 presidential election and several months after the commission’s dissolution on January 6, a day-long federal trial saw three former staff members stand with the government, prompting commission procedures. And part of the goal was revived.
“The dialogue with Navarro was important,” said Daniel George, a former senior investigative adviser to the commission and now a federal prosecutor in Connecticut. “We needed to understand if there was any truth” to allegations of voter fraud used by allies of the former president, including Mr. Navarro, to sabotage the outcome of the election.
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George was questioned in person and explained that he first communicated with Navarro via email on February 9, 2022 regarding the delivery of the congressional subpoena. According to George’s testimony, when he accepted the subpoena, Mr. Navarro responded with “administrative privilege,” suggesting he would not comply with the request.
“He was very responsive,” George testified before the subpoena was served. George said the Feb. 23, 2022, deadline to submit documents to Navarro and the March 2, 2022 deposition date have both passed, but Navarro has not received any requests from the committee or concerns regarding executive privilege. Despite the communication, he did not comply. At one point, Mr. Navarro wrote, “My hands are tied,” and directed the committee to contact Mr. Trump’s lawyers, according to trial evidence.
George told the jury that the committee had contacted members of Trump’s legal team regarding claims of presidential privilege against other individuals, but had not discussed Navarro’s subpoena.
Prosecutors asked if committee staff had heard anything from the former president’s lawyers in connection with Navarro’s subpoena, and George said “nothing.”
Committee staff member Mark Harris, who was scheduled to take Navarro’s deposition in March 2022, said his team noted for the record that Navarro was not in the interview room. David Buckley, a former Congressional investigator and former Pentagon official, told the jury about the legal framework that established the commission and its power to compel compliance with subpoenas.
“Mr. Peter Navarro made a choice,” Prosecutor Elizabeth Aloy said in closing statements Thursday. “He chose not to comply with Congressional subpoenas.”
Jurors saw a copy of the subpoena, its cover letter, and numerous emails exchanged between Mr. Navarro and committee staff during the period in question.
During cross-examination, Navarro’s attorney, Stanley Woodward, threw the ball over the committee’s failure to communicate after Navarro suggested communicating with Trump’s legal team on the issue of presidential privilege. hinted at abandonment.
Fights over managerial privileges
Navarro’s attorneys argued ahead of this week’s trial that Trump should also be allowed to tell the jury that he directed Navarro to invoke executive privilege protections against the subpoena. But prosecutors argued that there was no evidence that Trump made any formal effort to defend Mr. Navarro from the commission, a decision concurred by Justice Amit Mehta.
The ruling limited what the jury could say at trial and hampered Navarro’s defense.
Mr. Navarro did not take the stand to defend himself, but during an evidentiary hearing on executive privilege issues last week, it was “clear” that Mr. Trump invoked the protection rights during the 2022 phone call with Mr. Navarro. he told Mehta. However, the judge was not convinced.
Prosecutors told jurors on Thursday that Navarro’s implicit belief that the former president claimed privilege was “not a problem,” and Mehta instructed that such beliefs would not defend criminal charges. did.
Without a jury present, Navarro’s defense team challenged prosecutors’ reference to the Jan. “We have repeatedly tried to link that reason to Dr. Navarro.” What happened was inappropriate.”
But government lawyers argued that the commission’s authority and purpose on January 6 arose from the events of that day.
“In the aftermath of that attack, Congress tried to get to the bottom of what happened,” Aloy said Thursday. “Defendants knew about the plan to delay the certification of the electoral votes in Congress.”
“This lawsuit is not about what happened on January 6th. What happened on January 6th was abhorrent,” Navarro’s attorney Woodward said in Thursday’s closing remarks. “Did Dr. Navarro have anything to do with the violence that day? He didn’t.”
Woodward argued that the Justice Department had not effectively proven that Navarro willfully defied the subpoena. “Where was Dr. Navarro on March 2, 2022?” “Do we know that what happened was not the result of carelessness, accident, or mistake?”
Prosecutors fought back, claiming jurors heard testimony where Mr. Navarro wasn’t there that day: testimony before the committee.
After the verdict was read on Thursday, Woodward said jurors were strolling outside before handing down their verdict and may have seen protesters gathering outside the courthouse. , said it would seek misjudgment. Mr Mehta encouraged Mr Woodward to submit a brief in the case and was later seen with security guards assessing the courthouse exit.
Navarro is the second Trump ally to be convicted of failing to comply with a subpoena from the now-defunct commission. Last year, Steve Bannon was convicted of the same two counts and sentenced to four months in prison for failing to respond to a subpoena. Mr. Bannon’s team appealed the conviction, and a federal judge stayed the ruling until the matter was fully litigated.
Trump aides Mark Meadows and Dan Scavino were also referred by Congress to the Justice Department for prosecution on similar charges, but prosecutors ultimately chose not to indict them.