Peter Navarro, consultant to previous U.S. President Donald Trump, deals with press reporters after he was founded guilty of contempt of Congress for declining to work together with the House of Representatives committee examining the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, following his trial at U.S. District Court in Washington, September 7, 2023.
Leah Millis|Reuters
A jury on Thursday founded guilty previous Trump White House trade consultant Peter Navarro of 2 counts of criminal contempt of Congress Navarro confronts a year in jail, and U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta arranged his sentencing for January 12.
Navarro had actually stated he stopped working to abide by a congressional subpoena– which looked for files and his testament to a House committee examining efforts to reverse the 2020 election results– due to the fact that previous President Donald Trump advised him to assert executive benefit.
Following the decision, Navarro’s legal representative stated they would move for a mistrial, declaring the jurors were prejudiced by protesters’ indications outside throughout a time-out they took in considerations.
“Peter Navarro made a choice. He chose not to comply with the congressional subpoena. Our government only works when people play by the rules,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Aloi informed jurors in closing arguments in Washington, D.C.
“We are a nation of laws and our system does not work if people think they are above the law,” Aloi stated. “If people like the defendant can choose to ignore the government’s subpoenas, the work of our government to serve its people cannot get done.”
Navarro’s legal representative Stan Woodward stated, “For the government to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt it also has to prove that Dr. Navarro’s failure to comply with the subpoena was not the result of accident, mistake or inadvertence.”
Woodward argued that district attorneys had actually stopped working to provide proof of where Navarro was physically at the time he was because of appear prior to the choose House committee.
The committee wished to concern Navarro about his function in promoting incorrect claims that Trump had actually lost the 2020 election to President Joe Biden as the outcome of prevalent tally scams.
A critic of free-trade policies, Navarro is a teacher emeritus of economics and public law at the University of California, Irvine.
Another previous top Trump White House assistant, Steve Bannon, was founded guilty in 2015 of 2 counts of contempt of Congress for stopping working to abide by subpoenas released by the House committee. Bannon, who was sentenced to 4 months in prison because case, stays complimentary as he appeals that conviction.
