Peter Navarro, an advisor to former U.S. President Donald Trump, speaks to reporters as he is surrounded by protesters after being found responsible of contempt of Congress at the E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse on September 07, 2023 in Washington, DC.
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A jury on Thursday convicted former Trump White Home trade advisor Peter Navarro of two counts of felony contempt of Congress. Navarro faces up to a 12 months in jail, and U.S. District Courtroom Judge Amit Mehta scheduled his sentencing for January 12.
Navarro experienced stated he failed to comply with a congressional subpoena — which sought files and his testimony to a Residence committee investigating attempts to reverse the 2020 election benefits — due to the fact previous President Donald Trump instructed him to assert govt privilege.
Next the verdict, Navarro’s attorney claimed they would transfer for a mistrial, professing the jurors ended up prejudiced by protesters’ indicators outdoors through a quick split they took in deliberations.
“Peter Navarro manufactured a preference. He selected not to comply with the congressional subpoena. Our government only performs when persons enjoy by the guidelines,” Assistant U.S. Lawyer Elizabeth Aloi explained to jurors in closing arguments in Washington, D.C.
“We are a country of regulations and our system does not work if people believe they are higher than the regulation,” Aloi said. “If individuals like the defendant can decide on to disregard the government’s subpoenas, the operate of our authorities to provide its people cannot get performed.”
Navarro’s lawyer Stan Woodward reported, “For the govt to demonstrate its circumstance outside of a affordable doubt it also has to demonstrate that Dr. Navarro’s failure to comply with the subpoena was not the end result of accident, mistake or inadvertence.”
Woodward argued that prosecutors had unsuccessful to give proof of in which Navarro was physically at the time he was thanks to surface just before the select House committee.
The committee needed to issue Navarro about his job in advertising and marketing fake claims that Trump had lost the 2020 election to President Joe Biden as the final result of common ballot fraud.
A critic of free of charge-trade policies, Navarro is a professor emeritus of economics and general public policy at the University of California, Irvine.
An additional previous leading Trump White Home aide, Steve Bannon, was convicted previous calendar year of two counts of contempt of Congress for failing to comply with subpoenas issued by the Property committee. Bannon, who was sentenced to four months in jail in that scenario, continues to be totally free as he appeals that conviction.