Peter Navarro, an advisor to former U.S. President Donald Trump, speaks to reporters as he’s surrounded by protesters after being found guilty of contempt of Congress on the E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse on September 07, 2023 in Washington, DC.
Kevin Dietsch | Getty Images
A jury on Thursday convicted former Trump White House trade advisor Peter Navarro of two counts of criminal contempt of Congress. Navarro faces as much as a yr in prison, and U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta scheduled his sentencing for January 12.
Navarro had said he did not comply with a congressional subpoena — which sought documents and his testimony to a House committee investigating efforts to reverse the 2020 election results — because former President Donald Trump instructed him to say executive privilege.
Following the decision, Navarro’s lawyer said they’d move for a mistrial, claiming the jurors were prejudiced by protesters’ signs outside during a brief break they took in deliberations.
“Peter Navarro made a alternative. He selected to not comply with the congressional subpoena. Our government only works when people play by the principles,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Aloi told jurors in closing arguments in Washington, D.C.Â
“We’re a nation of laws and our system doesn’t work if people think they’re above the law,” Aloi said. “If people just like the defendant can select to disregard the federal government’s subpoenas, the work of our government to serve its people cannot get done.”
Navarro’s lawyer Stan Woodward said, “For the federal government to prove its case beyond an inexpensive doubt it also has to prove that Dr. Navarro’s failure to comply with the subpoena was not the results of accident, mistake or inadvertence.”
Woodward argued that prosecutors had failed to present evidence of where Navarro was physically on the time he was as a consequence of appear before the select House committee.
The committee desired to query Navarro about his role in promoting false claims that Trump had lost the 2020 election to President Joe Biden as the results of widespread ballot fraud.
A critic of free-trade policies, Navarro is a professor emeritus of economics and public policy on the University of California, Irvine.
One other former top Trump White House aide, Steve Bannon, was convicted last yr of two counts of contempt of Congress for failing to comply with subpoenas issued by the House committee. Bannon, who was sentenced to 4 months in jail in that case, stays free as he appeals that conviction.
