He had refused to testify before an investigative committee – now the former advisor to former US President Trump, Navarro, has been convicted of contempt of Congress. His sentence is still being determined.
Former advisor to former US President Donald Trump, Peter Navarro, has been found guilty of contempt of Congress by a federal court in Washington. The former economics professor was accused of refusing to cooperate with the House of Representatives committee investigating the riots at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Judge Amit Mehta scheduled the sentence to be announced on January 12th. Navarro faces between 30 days and a year in prison on both counts.
Navarro served in the Trump White House and later helped spread his baseless claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election, in which Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden.
Navarro invokes Executive privilege
Prosecutors accused Navarro of acting as if he were above the law when he refused to comply with a subpoena from the investigative committee and submit documents requested by the committee.
Navarro has said Trump used his executive privilege to prohibit him from cooperating with the investigative committee. Judge Mehta ruled that Navarro’s Trump-imposed executive privilege argument was not a defense to the prosecution. The defendant provided no evidence that Trump made use of this privilege.
Trump’s former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, was sentenced to four months in prison last fall for contempt of Congress, but appealed the decision and remains at large pending the outcome. Navarro also announced that he would take action against the decision.
The investigative committee examined the events of January 6, 2021: On that day, Trump’s supporters violently stormed the Parliament building in Washington, where Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election was about to be confirmed.