WASHINGTON (CN) — A federal judge on Tuesday rejected former White House adviser Peter Navarro’s request for a new trial on two contempt of Congress charges, finding no evidence that the jurors had been improperly influenced to convict him this past September.
Navarro, a former senior trade adviser in the Trump administration, claimed that while the jury was on an eight-minute break outside the federal courthouse prior to announcing their verdict, they were swayed by nearby demonstrators holding signs related to Navarro and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta’s ruling clears the path for Navarro’s sentencing, scheduled for Jan. 25.
Navarro had defied a congressional subpoena to provide records and appear before the special House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, but argued at trial that his role in the Trump White House afforded him immunity under executive privilege from the subpoena.
The committee subpoenaed Navarro in early 2022, identifying him as one of the “political forces” that directly led to the attack by peddling false claims of widespread voter fraud and crafting a scheme, known as the “Green Bay Sweep,” to keep then-President Donald Trump in power despite his electoral defeat.
The jury rejected the defense and convicted him after four hours of deliberation. He faces up to a year in prison for either count and a fine up to $100,000.
Navarro moved for a mistrial immediately after the jury returned with the verdict, pushing for an evidentiary hearing the following week to question the court security officer who had escorted the jurors outside the E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse.
Rosa Toldan Torres testified that she escorted the 12 jurors outside the courthouse into John Marshall Park, where they talked amongst themselves and were not approached by anyone else. She added that they were not wearing their juror badges and couldn’t be identified as such.
Following Torres’ testimony, Mehta ordered Navarro to provide evidence that supported his claim the jury was influenced, setting an Oct. 11 deadline.
The Barack Obama appointee has since reviewed Navarro’s submissions, including two videos taken by two protesters, both of whom held pro-Jan. 6 signs. Mehta also reviewed the court’s security camera footage to determine what the jury saw during their break.
In the first video, referred to as the “Jericho Video,” a man recording is seen wearing a black T-shirt depicting Ashli Babbitt, a Capitol rioter who was shot and killed that day, and holding a sign that said “J6 was a set-up.”
The Jericho Video only briefly records the jurors as they exit the courthouse and walk away from the man filming.
The second video, the “Freedom Media Express Video,” was filmed by a man in a white T-shirt with the image of Rosanne Boyland, a rioter who died on Jan. 6, and holding a sign that read “Free J6 Political Prisoners Now.”
According to images provided by Navarro, a third protester — a regular demonstrator who appeared at Rudy Giuliani's civil defamation trial and Trump's two Washington appearances — held a sign reading “Defend Democracy” and can be seen momentarily standing near the jurors as they reenter the building.
But Mehta clarified that the video does not show “any harassment of the jurors” as they approached.
Based on the evidence, Mehta found little proof that either group interacted in any way.
“The two men filming did not seem to recognize the group as jurors, let alone the jurors in the defendant’s case,” Mehta said. “Furthermore, the evidence does not establish that the jurors saw either of the signs held by the two men filming or what those signs said.”
One protester missing from the video footage, but singled out by Navarro, was a woman — known as Anarchy Princess on X, formerly Twitter, where she describes herself as "Peter Navarro's arch nemesis" — holding a sign clearly directed at him, reading “Bro, should’ve Plead the 5th Peter 4 Prison.”
Mehta found no evidence the woman was present outside the courthouse while the jurors were outside.
“It instead captures the moments before and after defendant emerges from the courthouse after the verdict, long after the jurors had left John Marshall Park,” Mehta wrote.
Considering Navarro and his defense team had been aware of the protesters before the jury returned with their verdict and failed to raise it first, Navarro had effectively waived his right to a new trial.
“A defendant cannot learn of alleged improper external influence on the jury, remain silent and gamble on a favorable verdict, only to complain afterwards that a new trial is warranted because the jury was unduly prejudiced by that outside influence,” Mehta wrote.
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