Fresh out of prison, Peter Navarro told the crowd at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday that “if they can come for me, if they can come for Donald Trump, be careful: They will come for you.” Putting aside the fact that the Supreme Court’s recent immunity ruling broadly insulated Trump from criminal liability, Navarro is correct — to the extent that anyone who fails to comply with a congressional subpoena does risk prosecution.
But Navarro’s remarks to the party don’t signal a full appreciation for why he was incarcerated.
The former Trump White House adviser cast his prosecution for contempt of Congress and his imprisonment as part of an unjust Democratic plot against him and the Constitution. The truth is simpler: Navarro was convicted after he failed to comply with a subpoena from the House Jan. 6 select committee.
He told the crowd in Milwaukee that the committee demanded he violate executive privilege and betray Trump, but that he refused. Yet, a court found that Trump didn’t assert or authorize Navarro to assert privilege in the first place.
Navarro’s narrative of Democratic “lawfare” by all three branches of government is further complicated by the fact that, in the end, it was the same Roberts Court that bestowed broad immunity on the president that also declined to keep Navarro out of prison while he appeals his conviction. To be sure, Navarro’s underlying appeal is still pending, and the court could still take up the issue someday, whether in his or in Steve Bannon’s appeal, which is also pending. (Bannon is currently locked up after the court similarly declined to keep him free while he appeals his contempt of Congress conviction.) But contrary to Navarro’s RNC claim that he “went to prison so you won’t have to” — whatever that even means — he went to prison because he failed to comply with a subpoena, was convicted at trial, and even the GOP-supermajority Supreme Court didn’t see fit to keep him free during his appeal.
Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro," a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
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