Former White House official Peter Navarro was indicted Friday on contempt charges after defying a subpoena from the House panel investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, per the AP. Navarro is the second former Trump aide to be charged with contempt of Congress for refusing to cooperate with the Jan. 6, 2021, investigation. Former White House adviser Steve Bannon was indicted in November. The case against him is pending. Navarro, 72, was charged with one contempt count for failing to appear for a deposition before the House committee. The second charge is for failing to produce documents the committee requested.
The indictment alleges that Navarro, despite being summoned to appear before the committee for a deposition, refused to do so and instead told the panel that because former President Trump had invoked executive privilege, “my hands are tied.” Even after committee staff told him that it believed there were topics he could discuss without raising any executive privilege concerns, Navarro again refused, directing the committee to negotiate directly with lawyers for Trump, according to the indictment. The committee went ahead with its scheduled deposition on March 2, but Navarro did not attend.
The indictment comes days after Navarro revealed in a court filing that he had been subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury this week as part of the Justice Department’s sprawling probe into the deadly insurrection. Navarro, who was a trade adviser to Trump, said he was served by the FBI at his DC house last week. The subpoena was the first known instance of prosecutors seeking testimony from someone who worked in the Trump White House as they investigate the attack. Navarro made the case that the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack is unlawful and therefore a subpoena it issued to him in February is unenforceable under law. (More Peter Navarro stories.)
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