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Peter Navarro, a White Home adviser to former President Donald J. Trump who defied a subpoena to supply info to the Home committee investigating the Capitol assault, was indicted on Friday by a federal grand jury on prices of contempt of Congress.
Prosecutors stated that Mr. Navarro, 72, failed to seem for a deposition or present paperwork to congressional investigators in response to a subpoena issued by the Home committee on Feb. 9. The indictment prices him with two counts of contempt that every carry a most sentence of a yr in jail, in addition to a high quality of as much as $100,000.
Mr. Navarro, who was arrested and brought into federal custody, didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark. He appeared in Federal District Court docket in Washington on Friday afternoon.
A former White Home commerce adviser who undertook intensive efforts to maintain Mr. Trump in workplace after the 2020 election, Mr. Navarro is the second high-ranking former presidential aide to be charged with contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the Home committee investigating the Jan. 6 assault. Stephen Ok. Bannon, a former high aide to Mr. Trump, was indicted in November on related prices.
The indictment towards Mr. Navarro got here almost two months after the Home voted largely alongside social gathering strains to suggest legal prices towards him. The identical vote additionally really helpful a contempt indictment towards one other of Mr. Trump’s high aides, Dan Scavino Jr.
The Home has additionally really helpful that Mark Meadows, the previous White Home chief of workers, be charged with contempt. However the Justice Division has but to take motion on the legal referrals towards Mr. Meadows or Mr. Scavino.
The Home subpoena that Mr. Navarro obtained sought paperwork and testimony about an effort to overturn the election that he had billed because the “Inexperienced Bay Sweep.” The plan referred to as for lawmakers in key swing states to crew with Republican members of Congress and Vice President Mike Pence to reject the outcomes that confirmed Joseph R. Biden Jr. had gained the election with the intention to give Mr. Trump the victory.
The subpoena additionally talked about a name that Mr. Navarro participated in with Mr. Trump and his attorneys on Jan. 2, 2021, during which they tried to influence a whole lot of state lawmakers to hitch the trouble.
Mr. Navarro additionally wrote a 36-page report claiming election fraud as a part of what he referred to as an “immaculate deception” that he stated he made positive was distributed to Republican members of Congress.
There is no such thing as a proof of widespread fraud within the 2020 election, and the Jan. 6 committee has described the claims in Mr. Navarro’s report as having been “discredited in public reporting, by state officers and courts.”
The indictment comes days after Mr. Navarro filed a lawsuit towards the Home committee, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the U.S. legal professional for the District of Columbia, during which he questioned the authority and validity of the inquiry.
Within the lawsuit, Mr. Navarro additionally revealed that he had just lately obtained one other subpoena, this one from a federal grand jury in Washington. That subpoena sought paperwork from him associated to any communications he might have had with Mr. Trump or his attorneys.
Mr. Navarro has claimed that as a result of Mr. Trump invoked government privilege to bar the disclosure of data requested by the Jan. 6 investigators, he’s prevented from complying with the subpoena. Prosecutors have been almost certainly fascinated about how intently Mr. Navarro was in contact with the previous president or his attorneys with the intention to assess that protection towards the contempt of Congress cost.
“The manager privilege invoked by President Trump shouldn’t be mine to waive,” Mr. Navarro has repeatedly stated.
Mr. Bannon has additionally sought to argue that he doesn’t should comply along with his personal subpoena due to Mr. Trump’s claims of government privilege. A trial in his case is tentatively scheduled for July.
Mr. Bannon is arguing that the choose committee shouldn’t be a legit investigative physique however a politically motivated one, citing the truth that two of its members have written books that presuppose who’s in charge for the Capitol riot though the inquiry has not ended.
Whereas contempt of Congress prices are not often introduced, the instances filed towards Mr. Navarro and Mr. Bannon recommend that the Justice Division has been prepared to take a troublesome stance towards not less than a few of Mr. Trump’s former aides who’ve stonewalled the Home committee’s efforts.
The fees towards Mr. Navarro come at a politically delicate second: one week earlier than the committee is poised to start a collection of high-profile hearings on its findings.
Mr. Navarro has taken an equally aggressive stance towards the committee, particularly with regard to its Democratic members. In his lawsuit, he vowed payback towards Democrats ought to Republicans retake the White Home and Congress in 2024.
“If I’m not useless or in jail,” he wrote, “I’ll lead the cost.”
Maggie Haberman contributed reporting.
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