A judge on Thursday denied a motion by Peter Navarro, a former adviser to former President Donald Trump, to dismiss contempt charges over his refusal to comply with a congressional subpoena from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 riot.
Navarro was charged with one count of contempt of Congress for failing to provide documents to the committee and another for failing to testify. He pleaded not guilty.
He asserted executive privilege to explain his conduct to the jury, but U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta said Navarro’s claim to that authority lacks merit and therefore “cannot avoid prosecution for contempt.”
Navarro said Trump urged him to assert executive privilege over the House committee’s requests in a private conversation, but the former aide presented no evidence to support that.
“His claim is based solely on his attorney’s statements, which are not evidence,” Mehta wrote, according to a copy of the opinion published by CNN. “Without actual evidence, the court cannot conclude that there was a formal invocation of the privilege by the former president.”
The judge also denied the group should have contacted Trump to confirm Navarro’s claim, saying the onus was on the lien holder, Trump.
“The court cannot dismiss a contempt of Congress charge on the mere presumption that President Trump would have asserted his executive privilege only if asked,” Mehta wrote.
Although the Justice Department pursued charges against Navarro, it did not pursue former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino, who have not fully cooperated with the investigation.
Navarro said he was singled out as “the result of an unlawful selective prosecution,” claiming he was “in a similar position” to the two. Mehta disagreed.
Meadows and Scavino received letters from Trump adviser Justin Clark asking them not to respond to subpoenas from the committee on Jan. 6.
“If the president had sent a similar letter to the defendant, the case here would be very different,” Mehta wrote.
The judge added that both Meadows and Scavino had detailed communications with the commission about the subpoenas, unlike Navarro, who showed little interest in cooperating with the jury.
“These interactions with the select committee contrast with those of the respondent, who communicated with the select committee for three weeks mostly through terse emails and public statements,” Mehta said.
There are “valid differences” between the three men that could explain their “different treatment”, the judge said.
Mehta also rejected Navarro’s suggestion that the contempt charges could not be sustained because the House committee had too few members and no senior members of the Republican Party.
Navarro’s trial is expected to take place by the end of the month.
In October, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon was sentenced to four months in prison and fined $6,500 in attorneys’ fees after being found guilty of contempt for defying a committee subpoena.
The group concluded its work last month by releasing its final report detailing Trump’s efforts to stay in office after losing the 2020 election. The report included 11 recommendations to prevent any president from trying to overturn the election again.
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