Peter Navarro, an advisor to former U.S. President Donald Trump, speaks to reporters as he’s surrounded by protesters after being discovered responsible of contempt of Congress on the E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse on September 07, 2023 in Washington, DC.
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A jury on Thursday convicted former Trump White Home commerce advisor Peter Navarro of two counts of felony contempt of Congress. Navarro faces as much as a yr in jail, and U.S. District Courtroom Choose Amit Mehta scheduled his sentencing for January 12.
Navarro had mentioned he didn’t adjust to a congressional subpoena — which sought paperwork and his testimony to a Home committee investigating efforts to reverse the 2020 election outcomes — as a result of former President Donald Trump instructed him to say govt privilege.
Following the decision, Navarro’s lawyer mentioned they might transfer for a mistrial, claiming the jurors had been prejudiced by protesters’ indicators outdoors throughout a brief break they took in deliberations.
“Peter Navarro made a selection. He selected to not adjust to the congressional subpoena. Our authorities solely works when individuals play by the foundations,” Assistant U.S. Lawyer Elizabeth Aloi instructed jurors in closing arguments in Washington, D.C.
“We’re a nation of legal guidelines and our system doesn’t work if individuals suppose they’re above the regulation,” Aloi mentioned. “If individuals just like the defendant can select to disregard the federal government’s subpoenas, the work of our authorities to serve its individuals can not get executed.”
Navarro’s lawyer Stan Woodward mentioned, “For the federal government to show its case past an inexpensive doubt it additionally has to show that Dr. Navarro’s failure to adjust to the subpoena was not the results of accident, mistake or inadvertence.”
Woodward argued that prosecutors had failed to offer proof of the place Navarro was bodily on the time he was as a result of seem earlier than the choose Home committee.
The committee needed to query Navarro about his position in selling false claims that Trump had misplaced the 2020 election to President Joe Biden as the results of widespread poll fraud.
A critic of free-trade insurance policies, Navarro is a professor emeritus of economics and public coverage on the College of California, Irvine.
One other former high Trump White Home aide, Steve Bannon, was convicted final yr of two counts of contempt of Congress for failing to adjust to subpoenas issued by the Home committee. Bannon, who was sentenced to 4 months in jail in that case, stays free as he appeals that conviction.
