Peter Navarro Sentenced to 4 months in prison for Contempt of Congress

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Judge denies Peter Navarro's bid to remain out of prison while appealing contempt of Congress case​

federal judge on Thursday denied Trump White House official Peter Navarro's bid to remain out of prison while he appeals his contempt of Congress conviction for refusing to cooperate with an investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Navarro was sentenced last month to four months behind bars after being found guilty of defying a subpoena for documents and a deposition from the House Jan. 6 Committee. The former White House trade adviser under President Donald Trump had asked to be free while he fights that conviction and sentence in higher courts. But U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta said that Navarro must report to serve his sentence when ordered by the Bureau of Prisons, unless Washington's federal appeals court steps in to block Mehta's order. The judge said Navarro hasn't shown that any of the issues he will raise on appeal are “substantial" questions of law. Among other things, Navarro has argued that his prosecution was motivated by political bias, but Mehta said Navarro had offered “no actual proof” to support that claim.

“Defendant’s cynical, self-serving claim of political bias poses no question at all, let alone a ‘substantial’ one,” wrote Mehta, who was appointed to the federal court in Washington by President Barack Obama. An attorney for Navarro didn't immediately respond to a message seeking comment. Navarro has said he couldn’t cooperate with the committee because Trump had invoked executive privilege. The judge barred him from making that argument at trial, however, finding that he didn’t show Trump had actually invoked it.

Navarro told the judge before receiving his punishment in January that the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack had led him to believe that it accepted his invocation of executive privilege. Navarro was the second Trump aide convicted of contempt of Congress charges. Former White House adviser Steve Bannon previously received a four-month sentence but is free pending appeal. The House committee spent 18 months investigating the insurrection, interviewing over 1,000 witnesses, holding 10 hearings and obtaining more than 1 million pages of documents. In its final report, the panel ultimately concluded that Trump criminally engaged in a “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the election results and failed to act to stop his supporters from storming the Capitol.

Trump, the Republican presidential primary front-runner, has been criminally charged by special counsel Jack Smith with conspiring to overturn his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden. Trump has denied any wrongdoing and says the case is politically motivated.

 

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Peter Navarro Threatened With Contempt Over Presidential Records​

A federal judge Tuesday ordered Peter Navarro to review hundreds of documents to return any remaining presidential records from his time in Trump’s White House—or potentially be found in contempt of court—after he defied previous court orders, nearly two weeks after another judge ordered him to report to prison. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly handed down the decision after the court reviewed documents Navarro provided last October that he claimed were personal records—after he previously refused to conduct court-ordered searches after losing a bid to retain the records last spring.

The Justice Department sued Navarro in August 2022 over emails it alleged he sent from a personal account and wrongfully retained after ending his government work.
The court review of the 50 documents Navarro handed over, which consisted of emails and some attachments, concluded that at least 12 were presidential records while 16 were ambiguous—including four journal entries—and at least 22 were personal.

Covered records under the 1978 Presidential Record Act are those that are either created or received by covered employees “in the course of assisting with the discharge of the President’s official duties,” according to the court filing—and must be managed by the National Archives and Records Administration at the end of a president’s administration.

The court filing said Navarro’s status as a covered employee under the PRA is “undisputed,” as he served as an adviser to Trump throughout his presidency. Kollar-Kotelly’s opinion indicated a magistrate judge will be referred to in order to ensure Navarro returns the required records to the government, including the 12 already identified as presidential records.

Navarro has until March 21 to show cause as to why he should not be held in contempt of court. Kollar-Kotelly also gave him until March 20 to review the remaining records in his possession, which court filings indicate may be “approximately 600 records.” “For instance, four (4) of these records appear to be journal entries in which Defendant writes about various aspects of his life,” Kollar-Kotelly wrote. “But the mere fact that the material is a journal entry does not mean it is a personal record, particularly as the journal entries include work-related topics.”

According to NARA, the Freedom of Information Act applies to the PRA five years after a president’s term ends, meaning that Trump’s presidential records will become subject to FOIA requests on Jan. 20, 2026.

Tuesday’s decision is the latest legal woe for Navarro, who is appealing his Jan. 25 conviction on two counts of contempt of Congress. He was sentenced to four months in prison—along with a $9,500 fine—for defying a subpoena from the House Jan. 6 Committee. The committee was seeking testimony and documents from Navarro on the “Green Bay Sweep,” a plan that was developed to try to upend the 2020 election results. Navarro failed to provide either, which resulted in two charges for contempt of Congress.

 

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Already going to prison for contempt, Navarro facing deja vu after federal judge demands he turn over presidential records​

Fresh off the heels of a four-month sentence for two counts of contempt of Congress, ex-Trump White House trade adviser Peter Navarro could be in hot water yet again after a federal judge threatened to hold him in contempt of court after he failed to return presidential records to the National Archives. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly issued the warning in a six-page opinion released on Wednesday cataloging the numerous times in which she said Navarro failed to comply with court-ordered requests to locate hundreds of official presidential records in his possession and hand them over. He has until March 21 to show cause for why he should not be held in contempt of court. “In sum, based on the court’s review of defendant’s random sampling, it is clear that defendant continues to possess Presidential records that have not been produced to their rightful owner, the United States,” the judge wrote. “It is likewise clear that defendant’s error rate is not minimal or negligible, and is likely ‘unacceptably high’.”

Kollar-Kotelly, appointed to the bench by former President Bill Clinton, wrote that “additional supervision” of Navarro’s compliance is warranted, and a magistrate judge will be assigned to ensure he provides the records requested by the court as well as others he may have in his possession but have not been identified by the judge. The warning was sparked after the judge reviewed a sample of records, which Navarro provided to the court and claimed were personal documents not privy to retention rules made for official records. But under Kollar-Kotelly’s scrutiny, it appeared to the judge that at least a dozen in the sample were not unambiguously personal records. The guiding doctrine under the Presidential Records Act categorizes “personal” materials as diaries, journals or other notes that serve the functional equivalent of a diary or journal but are not prepared or shown to those in the government or in the course of official business. Personal materials can also be those tied to private political associations that have no relation or effect on the official duties of the president. Lastly, personal records under the law are considered materials relating exclusively to the president’s election to the White House and materials related to an election of a specific person that has no direct effect on the duties of the presidency.

Navarro’s sample doesn’t make those distinctions clear. Merely labeling a journal entry as personal wouldn’t make it so, the judge explained.

Navarro was Donald Trump’s deputy assistant and director of trade and industrial policy and served as the inaugural head of the White House National Trade Council. He was appointed to coordinate the government’s Defense Production Act and respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, the opinion highlights, making the list of areas where his records could overlap between personal and presidential quite long. Notably, most of the records that piqued the judge’s interest were those pertaining to the 2020 election. Navarro had championed Trump’s claims of a “stolen” election in 2020 and was a self-professed orchestrator of a scheme with Steve Bannon to usher Trump into the White House known as the “Green Bay Sweep.”

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta presided over Navarro’s contempt of Congress trial after he was charged with failure to comply with the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. A jury found Navarro guilty, and at sentencing, Mehta denied his demand for a new trial and then later rejected his attempt to stay out of jail while he appealed his convictions.

According to Politico, Navarro reacted to the ruling on Wednesday, telling the outlet the Department of Justice “came after” him because he “allegedly didn’t produce ‘clearly personal’ records regarding my work on the integrity of the 2020 election.” “Now that same government tells me that those emails are Presidential Records and seeks to hold me in contempt for withholding them as personal?” he said.

It is unclear what date Navarro is expected to report to prison, but it should be in the coming weeks.

 

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'Unprecedented': Ex-Trump adviser Peter Navarro files emergency SCOTUS application to stay out of prison while appealing contempt conviction​

Former White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, who served under Donald Trump, on Friday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to keep him out of prison while he appeals his contempt of Congress conviction. On Thursday, a panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia denied the defendant that same request — instead ordering him to surrender to federal lockup authorities by March 19.

Navarro’s emergency application, addressed to Chief Justice John Roberts, complains about the appellate court’s ruling by referring to what his attorneys term “the unprecedented nature” of his conviction. “Dr. Navarro is the only former senior presidential advisor to be prosecuted for contempt of congress following an assertion of executive privilege by the president that advisor served,” the application reads. “To be clear, the District Court found that Dr. Navarro reasonably believed he was obligated to assert executive privilege on behalf of former President Donald Trump and there is no dispute that Dr. Navarro actually asserted executive privilege in response to the congressional subpoena he received.”

The House Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol believed Navarro had key information relevant to the probe on the events leading up to, during and after the pro-Trump riots, prosecutors were able to convince a jury.


When Navarro was asked for such records by Congress, he did not comply voluntarily. When facing the threat of subpoena, he did not comply. When finally under subpoena, he also failed to comply. An essayed executive privilege defense did not pan out. Trump never supplied Navarro or the court with evidence that he claimed executive privilege over his former trade specialist. In September 2023, he was found guilty on two counts of contempt of Congress — following a daylong trial and four hours of deliberations.

“For the first time in our nation’s history, a senior presidential advisor has been convicted of contempt of congress after asserting executive privilege over a congressional subpoena,” the emergency application reads. “Dr. Navarro has appealed and will raise a number of issues on appeal that he contends are likely to result in the reversal of his conviction, or a new trial.”
In January, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta sentenced the 74-year-old to four months in prison and a fine of $9,500 for his stonewalling. In his application, Navarro says the judge did not allow him to present a full defense while allowing the state something like free reign.

From the stay request, at length (emphasis in original):

Moreover, the district court precluded Dr. Navarro from presenting any evidence in his defense explaining that even though he did in fact default on the congressional subpoena, he felt duty-bound to assert executive (the district court acknowledged that Dr. Navarro at the very least thought he had invoked), while simultaneously allowing the government to summarize its case to the jury as Dr. Navarro’s assertion of executive privilege unequivocally did not excuse him from complying with the subpoena and his failure to do so put him, “above the law.”

During the trial, the defense — reeling from pretrial rulings — did not did not call any witnesses or present any evidence. Navarro’s application argues his prosecution — and the concomitant failure of his privilege defense was a historical aberration. “Here, it is patently unclear that Congress intended to punish senior presidential advisors who in good faith refused to comply with a congressional subpoena based on a good faith belief they were duty-bound to assert executive privilege — a position the Department of Justice maintained for more than four decades before its pursuit of a prosecution of Dr. Navarro,” the stay request reads.

 

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SCOTUS denies stay of sentence for ex-Trump adviser Peter Navarro​

Former Trump White House adviser Peter Navarro must report to prison on Tuesday as scheduled, after the Supreme Court on Monday denied the stay of his sentence. Chief Justice John Roberts, in a short opinion, wrote that he saw "no reason to disagree" with lower courts, which also rejected Navarro's request.

Navarro's appeal on the merits remains pending, but he will have to begin serving his sentence in the meantime. Navarro was ordered on March 11 to report to prison in Miami on Tuesday, to serve a four-month sentence. He was convicted in September of two counts of contempt of Congress for refusing to provide testimony and documents to the House Select Committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Navarro on Friday filed an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court in an attempt to remain out of prison as he works to overturn his conviction. In his filing to the Supreme Court, Navarro's attorney Stanley Woodward argued Navarro "is indisputably neither a flight risk nor a danger to public safety should he be released pending appeal."

n testimony during Navarro's trial, former Jan. 6 committee staff director David Buckley said the House panel had been seeking to question Navarro about efforts to delay Congress' certification of the 2020 election, a plan Navarro dubbed the "Green Bay Sweep" in his book "In Trump Time." Navarro unsuccessfully argued that former President Donald Trump had asserted executive privilege over his testimony and document production.

"For the first time in our nation's history, a senior presidential advisor has been convicted of contempt of Congress after asserting executive privilege over a congressional subpoena," Woodward's filing said. "Dr. Navarro has appealed and will raise a number of issues on appeal that he contends are likely to result in the reversal of his conviction, or a new trial."

Navarro would become the first former Trump adviser to report to prison for actions related to the Jan. 6 attack.

 

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Peter Navarro Responds to Looming Jail Time​

Peter Navarro has said his upcoming imprisonment over his response to the Capitol riot "should chill the bones of every American." Donald Trump's former aide hit out at the Supreme Court in a series of posts on X, formerly Twitter, after it denied his request to avoid prison while he appeals a contempt of Congress conviction.

Navarro, who served as Trump's trade adviser, was convicted in September 2023 for defying a subpoena from the panel that investigated the 2021 Capitol attack in which Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol to protest Joe Biden's election win. The panel requested he turn over records but he argued he did not have to cooperate with Congress because of Trump's executive privilege, which shields some presidential records from disclosure. He will serve a four-month prison sentence from Tuesday, according to press statements from his lawyers.

Newsweek contacted a representative for Trump by email to comment on this story.

Writing on X, Navarro said the judges who denied his release at the Appeals Court were all Democrats.

He added: "The partisan nature of the imprisoning of a top senior White House aide should chill the bones of every American. In Joe Biden's weaponized justice system, a Democrat controlled Congress and Justice Department together with an Obama-appointed District Judge and three Obama-appointed Appeals Court judges drove the Navarro railroad right into prison. If anybody thinks these partisans and politicians in robes aren't coming for Donald Trump, they must think twice now."

In an interview with Donald Trump Jr., he added he hoped his case would be "a landmark constitution case" regarding the separation of powers. "Men and women of America throughout our history have shed blood, lost their lives for the defense of this country, defense of what we stand for, defense of our values, defense of the constitution," he said. He added: "For me its a much smaller sacrifice to be willing to go to prison, as I now have been ordered to do, to defend what is really one of the most important principles of the constitution which is the constitution of the separation of powers."



In a statement emailed to Newsweek last week, before the ruling, Navarro reiterated his argument of executive privilege. He said: "United States v. Peter Navarro is a landmark constitutional case that will eventually determine whether the constitutional separation of powers is preserved, whether executive privilege will continue to exist as a bulwark against partisan attacks by the legislative branch, and whether executive privilege will remain, as President George Washington pioneered, a critical instrument of effective presidential decision-making. That's worth fighting for on behalf of all Americans."

Navarro's jail sentence is set to begin Tuesday at 2 p.m. in a Miami federal prison.

 

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Peter Navarro Attacks Justice System Before Walking Into Prison​

Former Donald Trump aide Peter Navarro attempted to blame the "partisan weaponization" of the U.S. justice system during a Tuesday press conference in the parking lot of a Miami federal prison.

Navarro previously served as director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy in the White House of former President Donald Trump, an office that began under that administration and was later abolished by President Joe Biden. In early 2022, he was twice subpoenaed for testimony by the House select committee investigating that January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, which he did not comply with.

As a result, Navarro was charged with contempt of Congress. He was convicted in September and, in January, sentenced to four months in prison and hit with a $9,500 fine.

Navarro claimed throughout the process that he did not have to turn over the documents requested by the select committee, as they were covered under Trump's executive privilege. His attempts to have his conviction overturned consistently failed in court, up to and including the Supreme Court, with Chief Justice John Roberts rejecting his appeal in an order from Monday.

After being convicted of contempt of Congress, Navarro will begin a four-month sentence on Tuesday afternoon at FCI Miami, a low-security institution with an adjacent minimum-security satellite camp. Prior to the start of his sentence, the former Trump aide held a press conference in the prison's parking lot, where he blamed his sentence on a supposedly weaponized justice system and Democratic judges.

"When I walk into that prison today, the justice system, such as it is, will have done a crippling blow to the Constitution's separation of powers and executive privilege," Navarro said. "The second and related story has to do with the emergence of 'lawfare' and the partisan weaponization of our justice system, which we have seen come to this country with a vengeance since the coming of Donald John Trump as president."

 

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Peter Navarro, Trump ex-aide jailed for contempt of Congress, will address RNC, AP sources say​

NEW YORK (AP) — Former White House trade advisor Peter Navarro, who is currently in jail on contempt of Congress charges, is expected to speak at next week's Republican National Convention just hours after his release. That's according to two people familiar with the event's schedule who spoke on condition of anonymity to share details before they were formally announced.

Navarro is set to be released from a Miami prison on Wednesday, July 17, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ online database of current inmates. That would give him just enough time to board a plane and make it to Milwaukee before the convention wraps Thursday. He was found guilty in September of contempt of Congress charges for refusing to cooperate with a congressional investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. His attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The decision to include Navarro on the program suggests convention organizers may not shy away from those who have been charged with crimes related to the attack — and the lies that helped spur it — at the party's nominating event, which will draw millions of viewers across days of prime-time programming.

Navarro, who served as a Trump's White House trade adviser, promoted baseless claims of mass voter fraud in the 2020 election and was subpoenaed by the committee investigating the attack.

Before he reported to federal prison in March for a four-month sentence, Navarro called his conviction the “partisan weaponization of the judicial system.”

He has maintained that he couldn’t cooperate with the committee because the former president had invoked executive privilege. But the court rejected that argument, finding Navarro couldn’t prove Trump actually had.

“When I walk in that prison today, the justice system — such as it is — will have done a crippling blow to the constitutional separation of powers and executive privilege,” Navarro said the day he reported for his sentence.

Trump, meanwhile, has called Navarro “a good man” and “great patriot” who was “treated very unfairly.”

Navarro had asked to stay free while he appealed his conviction to give the courts time to consider his challenge. But Washington’s federal appeals court denied his bid to stave off his sentence, finding his appeal wasn’t likely to reverse his conviction.

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts also refused to step in, saying in a written order that Navarro had “no basis to disagree” with the appeals court.

Navarro was the second Trump aide convicted of contempt of Congress charges. Former White House adviser Steve Bannon previously received a four-month sentence that he is serving now.

Trump himself was convicted in May on 34 counts of falsifying business records in his criminal hush money trial.

The Jan. 6 House committee spent 18 months investigating the events, interviewing over 1,000 witnesses, holding 10 hearings and obtaining more than 1 million pages of documents. In its final report, the panel ultimately concluded that Trump criminally engaged in a “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the election results and failed to act to stop his supporters from storming the Capitol.

Trump has also been charged for his efforts to overturn the election in both Washington, D.C., and in Georgia, but both cases are currently on hold.