Supreme Court Won’t Hear Navarro’s Claim Emails Subject to Presidential Immunity

The U.S. Supreme Court in Washington on Oct. 23, 2024. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

The U.S. Supreme Court on Dec. 16 rejected former Trump White House official Peter Navarro’s request to review a lower court order requiring him to surrender presidential records from the first Trump administration.

The court turned down the petition in Navarro v. United States in an unsigned order. The court did not explain its decision. No justices dissented.

On Dec. 4, President-elect Donald Trump said he would make Navarro a trade adviser in his incoming administration.

Navarro was director of the National Trade Council from January to April 2017, when it was abolished. He then served as director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy from April 2017 to January 2021.

Congress held Navarro in contempt for not complying with a subpoena from the House committee that probed the Jan. 6, 2021, security breach at the U.S. Capitol. Navarro declined to hand over records from the first Trump administration, saying it was not required because Trump invoked executive privilege, a claim rejected by the courts.

Navarro was sentenced to four months in prison and said his conviction was an example of the “partisan weaponization of the judicial system.”

Citing the Presidential Records Act, which requires that presidential documents be retained, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) asked Navarro to hand over presidential records from the first administration that he kept in his private email account, but he refused. NARA sued under a District of Columbia “replevin” statute, which allows a plaintiff to seek the return of wrongfully possessed property.

Navarro argued the federal government could not use the D.C. law because the Presidential Records Act did not allow it.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled against Navarro on April 1, affirming a lower court order from March 2023.

The circuit court said Navarro’s attorneys confirmed that “about 200 to 250” of his personal emails constituted presidential records, but the lawyers declined to produce the documents “without a guarantee that the records would not be used in Navarro’s unrelated criminal prosecution for contempt of Congress.”

Navarro’s arguments “are without merit under clear, longstanding precedent,” the circuit court said.

As a property owner, the federal government has “the same right … that other persons have” to “bring suits to … protect [its] property,” and replevin is “a proper vehicle” for the government to use.

In the petition he filed with the Supreme Court on Oct. 18, Navarro said he “initially sought to comply with” NARA’s request but changed his mind after he was indicted for withholding the documents requested in the congressional subpoena.

Navarro argued he was entitled to presidential immunity and that he wanted “to avoid” the documents being used “against him in the pending criminal matter.” Instead, the federal government sued him in August 2022 under the D.C. statute.

On Nov. 21, the federal government advised the Supreme Court that it was waiving its right to respond to Navarro’s petition.

The NARA lawsuit is expected to continue in the lower courts, at least for the time being.

Trump is scheduled to be inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2025. The new administration could change course on the litigation.