Former Trump Adviser Peter Navarro Charged With Contempt of Congress

Peter Navarro, former trade adviser to President Donald Trump, speaks to reporters as he departs U.S. District Court after he was indicted on two counts of contempt of Congress for his failure to comply with a subpoena from the House of Representatives committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, in Washington on June 3, 2022. Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

A grand jury on June 3 indicted Peter Navarro, a former adviser to President Donald Trump, for contempt-of-Congress charges after he refused to cooperate with the controversial January 6 panel’s probe into the Capitol breach.

The House Jan. 6 committee voted at the end of March to advance criminal charges against Navarro and Dan Scavino amid a raging legal battle over executive privilege.

At the time of the vote, Jan. 6 Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) rejected the claims of executive privilege.

“Executive privilege doesn’t belong to just any White House official. It belongs to the president,” Thompson said. “Here, President Biden has been clear that executive privilege does not prevent cooperation with the Select Committee by either Mr. Scavino or Mr. Navarro.

“Even if a president has formally invoked executive privilege regarding testimony of a witness—which is not the case here—that witness has the obligation to sit down under oath and assert the privilege question by question. But these witnesses didn’t even bother to show up.”

The Democrat-controlled House later voted to certify the charge.

Now, a grand jury has voted to move forward with criminal proceedings against Navarro.

He has been indicted for two counts of contempt of Congress. One count is in response to his failure to produce documents requested by the committee while the other is for his failure to answer the committee’s subpoena to show up and testify.

The decision makes Navarro the second former Trump White House official to be indicted.

Navarro did not respond to a request for comment from The Epoch Times.

In October, the commission set its sights on former White House adviser Steve Bannon, who left the White House years before the Jan. 6 rally.

Bannon, citing executive privilege, refused the summons. The Democrat-led House quickly advanced a contempt-of-Congress charge against Bannon, and President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice has since indicted Bannon on the charge.

Trump’s attorneys have argued that Bannon and other former officials shouldn’t comply because the requested information is protected by Trump’s executive privilege.

Much the same story has played out with former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who also refused a Jan. 6 commission summons in November, citing executive privilege.

Since then, the commission has further expanded its search, targeting sitting members of Congress like Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Scott Perry (R-Pa.), and even House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).

McCarthy called the efforts to subpoena sitting members of Congress an “abuse of power,” and all three House Republicans refused to testify before the committee.

The panel also set its sights recently on Ginni Thomas, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife, over claims that she texted Meadows during the Jan. 6 rally.

In view of the partisan nature of the summons and charges advanced by the commission some Republicans, including Trump, have accused it of a “witch hunt” exclusively targeting Democrats’ GOP enemies.

Others, like McCarthy, have been more ambiguous in their critiques of the committee. When the commission sent out its subpoena to Bannon, McCarthy argued that the ongoing legal disputes made the subpoena’s legitimacy unknown.

“They’re issuing an invalid subpoena,” McCarthy said. “Issuing an invalid subpoena weakens our power. He has the right to go to the court to see if he has executive privilege or not. I don’t know if he does or not, but neither does the committee. So they’re weakening the power of Congress itself by issuing an invalid subpoena.”

Following the commission’s recent decision to subpoena several prominent Republicans—marking the first time in U.S. history that sitting members of Congress have been subpoenaed by a congressional body—McCarthy further expanded on his argument that the subpoenas are potentially invalid.

“All valid and lawfully issued subpoenas must be respected and honored,” wrote Elliot S. Berke, McCarthy’s attorney, in a lengthy May 27 letter (pdf). “Unfortunately, the words and actions of the Select Committee and its members have made it clear that it is not exercising a valid or lawful use of Congress’ subpoena power.

“In fact,” Berke continued, citing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) refusal to place minority-selected members on the commission, “the Select Committee is not even operating in compliance with the rules its own members voted to put in place.”

Jordan, another Republican who received a subpoena from the commission, has also refused to comply with what he called a “political vendetta.”

With the decision of the federal grand jury to indict Navarro, the case will now move to criminal proceedings. If convicted, each count carries a minimum sentence of one month in jail or a maximum sentence of 12 months in jail, in addition to a fine ranging from $100 to $100,000.

Zachary Stieber contributed to this report.