Former Trump Adviser Peter Navarro Sentenced to Prison for Defying January 6 Committee Subpoena

Former Trump adviser Peter Navarro was sentenced to four months in prison for refusing to comply with a House January 6 Committee subpoena.

In June 2022, Navarro was indicted by a federal grand jury after a House vote earlier that year referred his case to the Justice Department. The January 6 Committee believed Navarro had sensitive information that he refused to provide relating stemming from his relationship with White House adviser Steve Bannon, who spearheaded efforts to delay certification of the 2020 presidential election.

In early September, Navarro was convicted on two counts of contempt of Congress after a prolonged battle by the former Trump ally to invoke executive privilege and protect himself from testifying.

“I am willing to go to prison to settle this issue. I’m willing to do that,” Navarro, 74, said after receiving a guilty verdict. “But I also know that the likelihood of me going to prison is relatively small because we are right on this issue.”

“The words executive privilege are not magical incantations,” U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta said on Thursday. “It’s just not, it’s not a get-out-of-jail-free card.”

“I have a great deal of respect for your client and what he’s achieved professionally, I do,” Mehta noted before sentencing. “Which makes it all the more disappointing, the way he behaved.”

Last week, Department of Justice prosecutors told Mehta that Navarro “chose allegiance to former President Donald Trump over the rule of law.”

“The rioters who overran the Capitol on January 6, 2021, did not just attack a building – they assaulted the rule of law upon which this country was built and through which it endures. By flouting the Committee’s subpoena and its authority to investigate that assault, the Defendant exacerbated that assault, following the attack on Congress with his rejection of its authority,” the DOJ wrote in its sentencing memo asking that the maximum six-month sentence be imposed alongside a $200,000 fine.

Navarro had initially requested six months’ probation and a $200 fine.