Former White House trade adviser Peter Navarro listens as his legal team talks to members of the media outside the federal court in Washington, Aug. 31, 2022. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)
An appeals court in Washington, D.C., has ruled that former Donald Trump White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, convicted in September on two counts of contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a subpoena from a congressional probe investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, must report to jail pending appeal.
The 2-page per curiam opinion released Thursday stated simply:
Appellant has not shown that his appeal presents substantial questions of law or fact likely to result in reversal, a new trial, a sentence that does not include a term of imprisonment, or a reduced sentence of imprisonment that is less than the amount of time already served plus the expected duration of the appeal process. See 18 U.S.C. § 3143(b)(1)(B).
Navarro is expected to report for his four-month sentence on March 19.
His attorney Stanley Woodward declined comment Thursday.
As Law&Crime previously reported, the former White House trade adviser to Donald Trump asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to pause enforcement of his sentence last month.
He argues, in effect, that “for the first time in history, a senior presidential adviser has been held in contempt of Congress after asserting executive privilege” and that “it has been the position of the Department of Justice for more than a half-century that senior presidential advisers may not be subject to congressional subpoena.”
He was rejected on those grounds before by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta; the judge found no proof that Trump had invoked executive privilege over his testimony or records when the House Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol first subpoenaed him in early 2022.
In his appeal, Navarro indicated that he was hankering for a fight at the U.S. Supreme Court.
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