Peter Navarro, a former Trump White House adviser, has been sentenced to concurrent four-month terms in prisons and ordered to pay $9,500 in fines for his refusal to comply with Congressional subpoenas he said were covered by executive privilege.
“I haven’t heard a word of contrition from Dr. Navarro since this case began,” D.C. District Judge Amit Mehta said during Mr. Navarro’s sentencing hearing on Jan. 25. While issuing his sentence, Judge Mehta noted Mr. Navarro’s academic accomplishments and said that he didn’t “come from means” and “overcame financial challenges” in his life.
He added that the country “owes a debt of gratitude” to Mr. Navarro for his work on the coronavirus.
The sentencing hearing started with Judge Mehta reviewing the defense’s objections to statements made in legal filings alleging a lack of communication with the House select committee investigating Jan. 6 after his Feb. 9, 2022 subpoena.
Mr. Navarro had received subpoenas from the committee and, in September, a jury found him guilty of two counts related to contempt of Congress: willful failure to provide records and willful failure to appear for testimony. Each charge carried the possibility of a $100,000 fine and 30 days to a year in prison.
The defense and Judge Mehta discussed the need for Mr. Navarro to acknowledge wrongdoing. He said Dr. Navarro did not express a clear acceptance of responsibility and noted that his sentencing memo accused the DOJ of a politicized prosecution. That “seems to me the opposite of accepting responsibility,” Judge Mehta said.
On Jan. 16, Judge Mehta denied his motion for a new trial over concerns the jury pool had been prejudiced by protesters present when jurors took a lunch break.
“Just another quiet day of put Peter in prison and free the [Jan. 6] prisoner signs outside the courtroom as jurors in the middle of deliberations inexplicably roam free,” Mr. Navarro told The Epoch Times at the time. “Nothing apparently to see here.”
His sentencing memo requested no more than six months of probation and a fine of $100 for each count. It also requested the court grant Mr. Navarro release pending appeal.
Before the hearing, Mr. Navarro spoke outside of the courthouse where he said that his legal bills exceeded $1 million.
Mr. Navarro has vowed to appeal the case and panned the trial. His legal team argued that he didn’t willfully disobey the subpoenas because former President Donald Trump had invoked executive privilege.
“Dr. Navarro’s actions do not stem from a disrespect for the law, nor do they stem from any belief that he is above the law,” his sentencing memo read. “Rather, Dr. Navarro acted because he reasonably believed he was duty-bound to assert executive privilege on former President Trump’s behalf.”
Navarro speaks
Mr. Navarro spoke during allocutions despite his attorney saying he had been advised against doing so.
Judge Mehta had told Mr. Navarro’s attorney, Stan Woodward, that he had a “great deal of respect” for Mr. Navarro, which made the situation even more “disappointing for him.” Mr. Navarro, Judge Mehta said that Mr. Navarro knew better than to make certain public statements, which contribute to “why our politics are so corrosive.”
Mr. Navarro thanked the judge during his statement and claimed he was led to believe that executive privilege had been invoked and accepted. At one point, he told Judge Mehta that “mens rea,” or the legal concept a defendant knew their conduct was illegal, “apparently doesn’t matter in this courtroom.”
Judge Mehta interrupted and argued that he himself didn’t prevent Mr. Navarro from utilizing mens rea, but instead, his reading of the law led him to believe that it should be excluded.
Mr. Navarro also touched on the events of Jan. 6, 2021. “I don’t want to bring politics in but we can respectfully disagree about the political environment surrounding all of this,” he said.
He added that “the minute” violence erupted on Capitol Hill, Jan. 6 became one of the worst days of his life.
Judge Mehta also told Mr. Woodward that “any attorney worth his salt” would have told Mr. Navarro to work with Congress. When Mr. Navarro spoke directly to Judge Mehta, he said that might be a “lesson” gleaned from the trial.
Executive Privilege
Mr. Navarro’s attorneys argued that “Dr. Navarro’s conviction reflects the application of antiquated, questionable precedent in this District. History is replete [with] those to [sic] have refused to comply with congressional subpoenas, and Dr. Navarro’s sentence should not be disproportionate from those similarly situated individuals.”
Mr. Navarro is just one of many Trump associates to face prosecution related to Jan. 6 and the subsequent congressional investigation. His attorneys argued that his “conviction reflects the application of antiquated, questionable precedent in this District.”
They pointed to how the D.C. Circuit was considering an appeal from Steve Bannon, a former Trump White House adviser, who claimed he followed his attorney’s advice in not complying with a congressional subpoena because President Trump had invoked executive privilege. Mr. Bannon was sentenced to four months in prison but his sentence has been stayed pending appeal.
Mr. Navarro’s attorneys argued that their client’s case was different from Mr. Bannon’s given that the latter’s “subpoena sought hardly any information related to Mr. Bannon’s brief tenure in the White House, and the government took the position that Mr. Bannon’s status as a private citizen and that the materials sought related to matters he took as a private citizen prevented him from raising executive privilege.”
The Justice Department (DOJ), meanwhile, called Mr. Navarro’s executive privilege defense “meritless.”
Mr. Navarro, it said, “consistently shielded his defiance behind claims of executive privilege he knew to be meritless, and did so because of his contempt for the Committee and its mission.”
“The sentence imposed on the Defendant must vindicate the authority of Congress to investigate matters of national importance and demonstrate that attacks on Congress’s lawful authority as a co-equal branch of government will not be tolerated,” its sentencing memo read.
It also noted how the court found that Mr. Navarro had not provided sufficient evidence to prove that President Trump had invoked executive privilege.
‘Thumbed His Nose’
DOJ asked Judge Mehta on Jan. 18 for Mr. Navarro to receive a six-month prison sentence. Prosecutors alleged that Mr. Navarro “thumbed his nose at Congressional authority” with his refusal to comply with the subpoena.
Instead of abiding by the Congressional request on a matter of “national importance,” Mr. Navarro “like the rioters at the Capitol, put politics, not country, first, and stonewalled Congress’s investigation,” DOJ’s sentencing memo read.
“The Defendant chose allegiance to former President Donald Trump over the rule of law even after being apprised that executive privilege would not excuse his default. For his sustained, deliberate contempt of Congress, the Defendant should be sentenced to six months’ imprisonment for each count—the top end of the applicable United States Sentencing Guidelines’ range—and fined $200,000.”
The brief noted that the prison terms could be imposed concurrently. “The mandatory minimum sentence of one month in prison is insufficient to account for, punish, and deter the Defendant’s criminal offenses,” it read. “For each Count, the Court should instead impose a sentence of six months’ imprisonment.”
Mr. Navarro’s attorneys accused the Justice Department of betraying its duty of impartiality in multiple ways.
“The government’s betrayal is manifest of its true motive—the prosecution of a senior presidential advisor of a chief political opponent,” read a brief from his legal team.
Naveen Athrappully contributed to this report.
From The Epoch Times