DOJ asks for six-month prison term for ex-Trump aide Peter Navarro

The Department of Justice has asked for a six-month prison sentence for former Trump aide Peter Navarro for contempt of Congress.

On Thursday, federal prosecutors argued in a 20-page filing that Mr Navarro put his loyalty to former President Donald Trump above the law when he declined to work with the House Select Committee looking into the Capitol riot on 6 January 2021.

Mr Navarro, who was a trade and pandemic adviser in the Trump White House who later pushed baseless claims of voter fraud, acted without a lawyer as he defied a subpoena from the House, instead relying on a press statement issued by former President Donald Trump in November 2021 saying that he didn’t have to work with another committee that was looking into the handling of the pandemic, prosecutors argued.

The 74-year-old was found guilty of two charges of contempt in September last year after he refused to testify or hand over documents after receiving a House subpoena in February 2022.

“In a cover letter accompanying the subpoena, the Committee gave the Defendant some examples of why the Committee believed the Defendant had relevant information, including that it had been reported that the Defendant had worked with various individuals to change the outcome of the 2020 presidential election and that the Defendant had publicly repeated discredited claims of election fraud,” DoJ prosecutors write in their filing.

The sentencing memo begins with DoJ noting that “when Peter K Navarro was served with a subpoena from the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, he thumbed his nose at Congressional authority and refused to comply – even before knowing what information the Committee sought. He cloaked his