President Joe Biden’s Justice Department is seeking to send former Trump administration adviser Peter Navarro to prison for six months for refusing to show up after he was subpoenaed by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol incursion.
Navarro was called to testify before lawmakers in 2022 but declined to show up, citing immunity due to executive privilege.
The former White House adviser argued he was immune from testifying because he worked directly with his boss, former President Donald Trump, at the time.
He maintained that any conversations he had with Trump were to remain confidential.
FBI agents arrested Navarro, 72, at an airport in June 2022 and handcuffed and leg-shackled him.
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Navarro complained at the time that he had been in contact with federal agents and would have been happy to surrender. Instead, the agents made a spectacle of his arrest by ambushing him at an airport and in front of the public, he said.
A fuming Peter Navarro complains about being handcuffed, shackled, and put in John Hinckley’s old cell. “What they did to me today violates the Constitution!” pic.twitter.com/5sSdWGxfRH
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) June 3, 2022
Navarro was convicted of two misdemeanor counts of contempt of Congress last September.
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The Justice Department said in a news release he faced a maximum of one year in prison for each conviction.
NBC News reported on Thursday that prosecutors said in a sentencing request that Navarro — a senior citizen — “deserves severe punishment” for defying the subpoena.
They have asked for a sentence of six months behind bars and a $200,000 fine.
“The Defendant chose allegiance to former President Donald Trump over the rule of law,” federal prosecutors said in a sentencing memo.
The memo concluded, “He cloaked his bad-faith strategy of defiance and contempt behind baseless, unfounded invocations of executive privilege and immunity that could not and would never apply to his situation.”
Navarro will be sentenced on Jan. 25.
Attorneys for Navarro issued a defiant statement on behalf of their client.
“Despite the government’s effort to label Dr. Navarro as an insurrectionist, the reality is that his conviction arises solely from a conviction for his refusal to comply with the Select Committee’s subpoena and has nothing to do with the events that occurred at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.”
Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon was also indicted for defying a similar subpoena. He was sentenced to four months in prison in October 2022 but has not yet spent any time behind bars.
While Navarro fights for his freedom, President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden has thus far faced no consequences for defying his own congressional subpoena.
House Republicans requested to speak with Hunter Biden last month but he refused to talk with them
Last week, he showed up to a hearing wherein lawmakers discussed holding him in contempt.
The president’s son walked out of the hearing but has since agreed to speak with lawmakers late next month.
