Trump DOJ Opens Door to Reversing Peter Navarro’s Criminal Conviction
(AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
The Justice Department under President Donald Trump is reconsidering the legal basis for Peter Navarro’s 2023 conviction for criminal contempt of Congress, according to court filings reviewed by The Washington Post.
In a motion filed two weeks ago that was viewed by the paper, the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia asked to postpone oral arguments in Navarro’s ongoing appeal of the conviction, stating the department needed time “to reexamine its position on the executive-privilege issues implicated in this appeal.”
A three-judge panel on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals granted the request, according to the Post.
The DOJ now has until Aug. 29 to decide whether it will continue defending Navarro’s conviction or reverse its position.
The Post reported :
Two days after April 2, when Donald Trump announced global tariff hikes championed by Navarro — on what the president described as “Liberation Day” — the Justice Department said in a court filing that it was reevaluating his claims of immunity from charges.
[…]The House sought to hear from Navarro after he published a memoir later that year claiming he worked with former Trump strategist Stephen K. Bannon on an operation called the “Green Bay Sweep,” a football reference to an end-run play made famous in the 1960s. The plan aimed to get Trump loyalists in Congress to contest ballots from six swing states that Joe Biden won in 2020 and throw the election to the House, though claims of voter fraud were repudiated by state officials and the courts.
Navarro served a four-month sentence after being found guilty of defying subpoenas from the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.
He claimed while ignoring the subpoena and after the conviction that Trump had asserted executive privilege over their communications. He claimed he was unable to speak to members of the bipartisan committee.
The trial judge rejected Navarro’s defense.
Ed Martin, the US Attorney who is now overseeing the case, previously condemned Navarro’s prosecution and conviction and called him a “political hostage.”
Since taking office, Martin has also demoted two prosecutors involved in Navarro’s case.
Navarro is not interested in a pardon from Trump and is appealing his conviction.
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