Ex-Trump aide’s last-ditch effort to stay out of prison fails after appeal gets rejected

14 March 2024

The DC Circuit Court of Appeals has officially rejected Peter Navarro's request to stay out of prison while he appeals his sentence, meaning he could be headed to federal prison as soon as next week.

Navarro — who was a senior advisor in former President Donald Trump's White House for almost the entirety of his term — insisted that there were remaining questions surrounding his sentence that required reversal, a new trial or a sentence without imprisonment. According to Politico legal correspondent Kyle Cheney, who initially tweeted the ruling denying Navarro's appeal, the 74-year-old would be the first former Trump aide to go to prison due to actions relating to the 2020 election.

In their ruling, the three-member DC Circuit panel consisting of Obama-appointed judges Patricia Millet, Cornelia Pillard and Robert Wilkins struck down the core element of Navarro's defense.

"“[T]he argument presupposes that privilege has actually been invoked in this case in some manner by the President,” the judges wrote in a two-page order upholding a previous ruling by US District Judge Amit Mehta (also an Obama appointee). “That did not happen here.”

Judges also remarked that even had Trump invoked executive privilege, it still wouldn't have protected Navarro from having to testify before the January 6 committee given the "imperative need for evidence."

"Even if executive privilege were available to appellant [Navarro], it would not excuse his complete noncompliance with the subpoena," the judges ruled. "Appellant makes no claim of absolute testimonial immunity, nor could he. A properly asserted claim of executive privilege would not have relieved him of the obligation to produce unprivileged documents and appear for his deposition to testify on unprivileged matters."

Navarro was originally sentenced to four months in prison for contempt of congress after defying a 2022 subpoena from the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack. Notably, former Trump White House chief strategist Steve Bannon was also sentenced to four months in prison for the same crime, but he was successful in his bid to remain free while appealing his sentence.

Navarro — a conservative economist — was one of the primary advocates for then-Vice President Mike Pence to use his position presiding over the US Senate to deem that Trump was to stay in office due to disputed electoral votes from swing states. He told MSNBC's Ari Melber that "the remedy was for Vice President Pence as the quarterback in the Green Bay Sweep (the name of a plan Navarro hatched with Bannon to pressure Republicans) to remand those votes back to the six battleground states." He denied Melber's accusation that doing so would have constituted a "coup."

Click here to read Cheney's full report in Politico.

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