By ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON (Associated Press)
MIAMI (AP) — Peter Navarro, a former Trump White House official, went to prison on Tuesday to begin his four-month sentence for refusing to cooperate with a congressional investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Before he went to a federal lockup in Miami, Navarro spoke defiantly to reporters. He was found guilty of contempt of Congress charges and will serve a four-month sentence.
In September, Navarro was found guilty of defying a subpoena from the U.S. House Jan. 6 committee and served as a White House trade adviser under Donald Trump. Later, he promoted the Republican’s unfounded claims of mass voter fraud in the 2020 election that the incumbent president lost to Democrat Joe Biden.
Navarro said he couldn't cooperate with the committee because Trump had invoked executive privilege. But courts rejected this, saying he couldn't prove Trump had actually invoked it.
Navarro told reporters on Tuesday that the justice system would damage the constitutional separation of powers and executive privilege when he entered the prison.
After speaking to reporters, Navarro got into a car with his lawyer to head to the lockup. The federal Bureau of Prisons later confirmed that Navarro was in custody.
Navarro had hoped to remain free while appealing his conviction, but Washington’s federal appeals court denied his request, stating that his appeal was unlikely to reverse his conviction.
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts also declined to intervene, stating that his decision would not affect the final outcome of Navarro’s appeal.
Navarro became the second Trump aide to be convicted of contempt of Congress charges. The first was former White House adviser Steve Bannon, who received a four-month sentence but was allowed to remain free pending appeal by a different judge.
The House committee spent 18 months investigating the insurrection, interviewing over 1,000 witnesses, conducting 10 hearings, and obtaining over 1 million pages of documents. The panel ultimately concluded that Trump criminally engaged in a ‘multi-part conspiracy’ to overturn the election results and failed to act to stop his supporters from storming the Capitol.
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Associated Press reporter Alanna Durkin Richer contributed from Boston.
