Former White House trade adviser Peter Navarro speaks to the media as he departs federal court, Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2023, in Washington. Navarro was convicted Thursday, Sept. 7, of contempt of Congress charges filed after he was accused of refusing to cooperate with a congressional investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)
By Lindsay Whitehurst
Trump White House official Peter Navarro was found guilty Thursday of contempt of Congress charges for refusing to cooperate with a congressional investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The verdict came after a short trial for Navarro, who served as a White House trade adviser under President Donald Trump and later promoted the Republican’s baseless claims of mass voter fraud in the 2020 election he lost.
Navarro was the second Trump aide to face contempt of Congress charges after former White House adviser Steve Bannon. Bannon was convicted of two counts and was sentenced to four months behind bars, though he has been free pending appeal.
Navarro vowed to appeal the verdict, saying the “die was cast” after a judge ruled that he couldn't fight the charges by arguing he couldn't cooperate with the committee because Trump had invoked executive privilege.
U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta found that Navarro didn't have enough evidence to show Trump had invoked it.
“This is a landmark case that’s bound for the Supreme Court,” Navarro said. Defense attorney John Rowley echoed that, saying “this case is not over by a long shot.”
Mehta scheduled Navarro's sentencing for Jan. 12. Navarro was convicted in Washington's federal courthouse of two misdemeanor counts of contempt of Congress, both punishable by up to a year behind bars.
The verdict came after a four-hour jury deliberation. After it was read, defense attorney Stanley Woodward moved for a mistrial, saying that the jurors had taken an outdoor break near where protesters and media regularly gather outside the courthouse and came back with a verdict shortly after. Mehta did not immediately rule, but said he would consider written arguments on the issue.
Prosecutors argued at trial that Navarro acted as if he were “above the law” when he defied a subpoena for documents and a deposition from the House Jan. 6 committee.
A defense attorney countered that Navarro didn’t purposely ignore the House Jan. 6 Committee. Navarro instead told staffers to contact Trump about what might be protected by executive privilege, something that didn’t happen, Woodward said.
Prosecutors, though, argued that even if Trump had invoked executive privilege, Navarro should have handed over what material he could and flagged any questions or documents believed to be protected. They said much of the material the committee sought was already publicly available.
“Peter Navarro made a choice. He chose not abide by the congressional subpoena,” prosecutor Elizabeth Aloi said. “The defendant chose allegiance to former President Donald Trump over compliance to the subpoena.”
Barred from relying on the executive privilege argument at trial, the defense argued that Navarro had not acted “willfully” or only out of loyalty to Trump.
“Do we know that his failure to comply beyond reasonable doubt wasn’t the result of accident, inadvertence or mistake?” Woodward said.
The House Jan. 6 committee finished its work in January, after a final report that said Trump criminally engaged in a “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the lawful results of the 2020 election and failed to act to stop a mob of his supporters from attacking the Capitol.
Trump, meanwhile, faces a federal indictment in Washington, D.C., and a state indictment in Georgia over his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden, a Democrat. He has denied wrongdoing and has said he was acting within the law.
Krutika Amin, associate director at the Kaiser Family Foundation for the Program on the Affordable Care Act, joins Cheddar Politics to discuss the Biden administration's plan to fix the so-called 'family glitch' in the Affordable Care Act preventing millions of Americans from accessing government-subsidized health plan.
Abdallah Fayyad, opinion writer at the Boston Globe, joins Cheddar Politics to discuss the House's vote to hold former Trump aides Dan Scavino and Peter Navarro in contempt of Congress and send the recommendation to the Department of Justice. Fayyad also weighs in on the pressure facing Attorney General Merrick Garland to be more aggressive in prosecuting the January 6 case.
Those paying back federal student loans are getting a few extra months of relief. President Biden just announced another extension of the pandemic relief program allowing millions of borrowers to freeze their student loan payments. The pause began in March 2020 and it has been extended six times. Tomas Campos, co-founder and CEO of Spinwheel, joins Cheddar News to discuss.
There has been notable disagreement in the medical community about a fourth COVID-19 vaccine dose. The FDA last week authorized a second booster dose for older and immunocompromised individuals, as some agency officials did not support the idea. The FDA made the decision without meeting with its advisory committee, as it had ahead of its recommendations on the previous COVID-19 vaccine doses.
The CDC followed in the footsteps of the FDA and authorized a fourth dose as well. Reports say the agency also did not discuss the move with its own advisory team of vaccine experts. Now, a growing number of doctors are speaking out against the decisions - leaving people confused about whether they should get another vaccine dose. Dr. Julie Morita, a member of the CDC's advisory committee to the director, and the executive vice president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
The Senate has confirmed Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, shattering a historic barrier by securing her place as the first Black female justice and giving President Joe Biden a bipartisan endorsement for his effort to diversify the court
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has tested positive for COVID-19, her spokesman says. That's a day after the 82-year-old Democratic leader appeared unmasked at a White House event with President Joe Biden.
JetBlue made an unsolicited offer to buy low-cost carrier Spirit Airlines, potentially jeopardizing the original offer from Frontier Airlines. Several analysts sounding the alarm on JetBlue's proposed $3.6 billion merger, saying the deal doesn't quite make sense. Jim Corridore, Senior Insights Manager at Similarweb joined Cheddar's Opening Bell to discuss.
The Biden administration is once again extending the pause on federal student loans payments — this time, through the end of August. In a statement, President Biden cited a recent analysis from the Fed that if the payments were to resume, millions of student loan borrowers would face significant "economic hardship, delinquencies, and defaults that could threaten America's financial stability." Sarah Foster, an analyst at Bankrate, breaks down the impact of the extension on borrowers, the economy, and the future of student loan forgiveness. "I think this is just an instance of the federal student loan forbearance program kind of creating additional uncertainty for borrowers, especially in the sense that these past four extensions from the Biden administration have kind of come at the 11th hour here," she said.
