WASHINGTON (CN) — Peter Navarro, a former senior Trump White House official, faced a federal jury on Wednesday to begin his trial over contempt of Congress charges for refusing to provide documents or testify before the special House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Navarro, who served as a senior trade adviser throughout the entirety of Donald Trump’s administration, played a key role in advancing and promoting false claims of voter fraud and crafting a scheme, known as the “Green Bay Sweep,” to delay the 2020 election certification on Jan. 6 and allow Trump to remain in power.
The U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack subpoenaed Navarro to provide documents and testimony related to the scheme and the false claims that the election had been stolen he had spread to justify the plan. Navarro refused to turn over documents or appear to provide testimony, arguing that as a close adviser to Trump he was protected by executive privilege.
During opening arguments Wednesday, Justice Department prosecutor John Crabb Jr. emphasized that even if Navarro had immunity, he still had to appear before the committee and specifically invoke the privilege in response to their questions.
In his attempt to use the privilege as a blanket protection, Navarro had blatantly disregarded the legally binding subpoena and placed himself above the law, Crabb argued.
“We are a nation of laws, and no one should be above the law,” he said, urging the jury to “hold Navarro accountable.”
U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, a Barack Obama appointee, ruled this past week that Navarro and his defense attorneys cannot argue that he blew off the subpoena because he thought Trump had asserted executive privilege to block his cooperation. Mehta decided that Navarro had failed to prove Trump had made that assertion.
Executive privilege has not been found to apply for various Trump aides, including Michael Flynn and Dan Scavino, who have been called before the committee. Such privilege would have to come from the current president, and President Joe Biden has refused to provide it.
Stanley Woodward Jr., Navarro’s defense attorney, agreed with the government that his client did not give documents or testimony like the committee had asked, but highlighted the fact that until the government could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that his client intentionally broke the law, he is presumed innocent.
He noted how Crabb had begun his opening arguments by talking about the peaceful transfer of power and how the attack on the Capitol had disrupted that centuries-long tradition. "That’s not what this case is about," he said.
Woodward compared the Crabb’s arguments to a movie trailer, saying that the government was trying to initially link Navarro’s actions to the Capitol riot in the jurors’ minds without providing any further evidence related to the riot for the remainder of the trial.
“The preview for this movie, the evidence will show, is better than the movie actually will be,” Woodward said.
Navarro, who has pleaded not guilty to the contempt charges, was present for Wednesday’s hearing standing in the corner of the courtroom and only occasionally sitting with his defense attorneys to view evidence presented to the government’s three witnesses.
One such witness was Dan George, the former senior investigative counsel for the committee who had sent the subpoena to Navarro, who testified that the committee targeted Navarro as one of the key political forces that led to the Capitol riot.
He explained that Navarro had was a particular person of interest to the committee because of frequent public statements he had made peddling false election claims, including the release of the so-called “Navarro Report” that alleged there were “mountains of evidence” proving the now debunked claims of election fraud.
Navarro replied to George’s initial email, asking whether he could send the subpoena via email and whether Navarro had an attorney, within three minutes.
“Yes. No counsel. Executive privilege,” Navarro wrote, according to a copy of the communications between Navarro and George presented to the jury. George said the mention of executive privilege didn’t hold much weight, as he would have still had to appear to invoke it.
The Green Bay Sweep plan — named by former Trump adviser Steve Bannon after a Green Bay Packers play designed around a running back forcing their way into the endzone behind a wall of offensive linemen — involved Trump loyalists in the House and Senate contesting the ballots from six swing states that President Joe Biden had won to allow Republican-dominated legislatures from those states to decertify their states’ election results, effectively giving Trump more electoral votes and therefore the election.
Bannon was similarly charged on two contempt of Congress counts for refusing a subpoena, which landed him a four-month prison sentence, although he remains free pending an appeal.
Separate from the criminal contempt charges, Navarro faced a federal lawsuit that his refusal to turn over private emails related to his role as a presidential adviser after the 2020 election flouted the Presidential Records Act.
This past March, U.S. District Judge Coleen Kollar-Kotelly ordered Navarro to turn over up to 250 personal emails that he had withheld, rejecting the former trade adviser's assertion that doing so would violate his right against self-incrimination in the contempt of Congress case.
Both parties rested their case Wednesday afternoon. The jury will hear closing arguments from the parties Thursday morning.
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