By Adriana Gomez Licon | The Associated Press
Former Trump White House official Peter Navarro reported to prison Tuesday to begin serving his sentence for refusing to cooperate with a congressional investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Navarro, a former economics professor at UC Irvine, was defiant in remarks across the street from the federal prison complex in Miami, where he will serve a four-month sentence after being found guilty of contempt of Congress charges.
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After speaking to reporters, Navarro got in a car with his lawyer to head to the prison, and the Bureau of Prisons confirmed he is in federal custody.
Navarro has maintained that he couldn’t cooperate with the committee because former President Donald Trump had invoked executive privilege. Courts have rejected that argument, finding he couldn’t prove Trump had actually invoked it.
“When I walk in that prison today, the justice system — such as it is — will have done a crippling blow to the constitutional separation of powers and executive privilege,” Navarro said Tuesday.
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Navarro had asked to stay free while he appealed his conviction to give the courts time to consider his challenge. But Washington’s federal appeals court denied his bid to stave off his sentence, finding his appeal wasn’t likely to reverse his conviction.
And Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on Monday also refused to step in, saying in a written order that he has “no basis to disagree” with the appeals court. Roberts said his finding doesn’t affect the eventual outcome of Navarro’s appeal.
Navarro was the second Trump aide convicted of contempt of Congress charges. Former White House adviser Steve Bannon previously received a four-month sentence but a different judge allowed him to stay free pending appeal.
Navarro was found guilty of defying a subpoena for documents and a deposition from the House Jan. 6 committee. He served as a White House trade adviser under then-President Trump and later promoted the Republican’s baseless claims of mass voter fraud in the 2020 election the incumbent president lost to Democrat Joe Biden.
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