Peter Navarro is set to be released on Wednesday after serving a four-month sentence for failing to respond to a congressional subpoena in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
Shortly afterwards, former President Trump’s White House trade adviser is scheduled to speak at the Republican National Convention, according to an email from former President Trump’s campaign.
Navarro’s lawyers declined to answer questions about when he might be released from Miami Federal Prison, where he is serving his sentence, to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where the Republican nomination event will take place, but the convention is scheduled to conclude on Thursday night, just one day after Navarro’s sentence ends.
Navarro was convicted last year of two contempt of Congress charges, one for failing to turn over documents related to an investigation and another for failing to testify before a House select committee investigating events surrounding the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
He had hoped to get out of prison while appealing his conviction, but his last-ditch attempt to maintain his freedom was rejected by Chief Justice John Roberts in an unusual “court” opinion on the eve of his sentence being set to begin.
Roberts received Navarro’s motion to avoid jail because he was handling an emergency case arising from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. The chief justice said he denied Navarro’s motion because Trump’s former adviser had abandoned any arguments challenging the district court’s conclusion that Trump had not exercised executive privilege. He said the decision was separate from the appeal on the merits pending against Navarro.
Whether Trump granted Navarro executive privilege is likely to play a central role in the appeal, as the district judge in the case barred Navarro from using it as part of his defense because he failed to prove that Trump invoked executive privilege in the first place.
The defense said the ruling “hampered” their defense and that Navarro “honestly believes” executive privilege was invoked.
“The purpose of this appeal is not to avoid any punishment that Dr. Navarro would have received, nor to seek a stay of any punishment that he has already received during this period. Rather, it is to resolve important questions of federal law,” Navarro’s lawyers wrote in their appeal brief on July 11. “Specifically, this appeal raises a series of related questions about the role of executive privilege at the intersection of separate but co-equal branches of government.”
While in prison, Navarro was visited by President Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., who said his father’s former adviser was “doing well” and suggested it was “important to show support.”
Trump himself said in May that he would “absolutely” rehire Navarro if he was re-elected in November. Navarro has said he would not seek a pardon from Trump or President Biden if he were re-elected.
“I urge the Supreme Court to do this,” Navarro said of his appeal the day his sentence began, “but the tragedy is that because he will not be released during the appeal, he will have completed his sentence before the appeal is over.”
“But that’s the price of living now in Joe Biden’s America,” he added. “God bless you all, and see you on the other side.”
Steve Bannon, a former White House aide to President Trump, also began serving his prison sentence on July 1 for evading a House committee hearing on January 6.
Bannon was initially allowed out of prison while he appealed his conviction, but a federal appeals court upheld that decision and he was ordered to begin serving his sentence. The Supreme Court also rejected Bannon’s last-minute emergency appeal.
Bannon described himself as a “political prisoner” before reporting to a federal prison in Connecticut, where he is serving his sentence, and is scheduled for release on October 29, just days before the presidential election.
