At the end of an appellate hearing Thursday in Washington, D.C., a judge told Peter Navarro’s lawyer that she would normally offer him a chance for a rebuttal argument — but, the judge noted, “there’s nothing to rebut.”
“Yes,” Navarro’s lawyer Stanley Brand replied, “that’s been a very strange journey on that front.”
The exchange alluded to the fact that Navarro was the only party presenting arguments at the hearing over his challenge to his contempt of Congress conviction, which he received for not complying with a House Jan. 6 committee subpoena. He was prosecuted during the Biden administration but, under Donald Trump’s administration, the Justice Department told the appeals court that it “is no longer taking the same position as the prior administration in this case.”
In its motion to strike its prior position, the DOJ suggested the D.C. federal appeals court appoint a third party to defend the conviction. But the court declined to do that, leaving only Navarro’s lawyer in court on Thursday.
Despite the lack of opposition, Brand had a tough time before the three-judge panel, which sounded ready to rule against him. On the panel were Judges Patricia Millett, Cornelia Pillard and J. Michelle Childs (Millett and Pillard are Obama appointees and Childs is a Biden appointee).
Yet even if Navarro loses this round of litigation, his legal journey is likely to continue toward the Supreme Court. He’s pressing the appeal after having already served his prison sentence, which he tried to avoid while he was appealing but the justices refused to save him last year.
The White House trade adviser has argued that the congressional committee demanded he violate executive privilege and betray Trump, though the trial court found that the president didn’t assert, or authorize Navarro to assert, that privilege. Meanwhile, another Trump ally, Steve Bannon, is trying to convince the justices to take up his own contempt of Congress appeal. The Trump DOJ initially waived its right to respond to Bannon’s petition, which would’ve likely led to a denial of the petition. But the court called for a response from the DOJ, which is currently due Jan. 9. In addition to Bannon’s obvious interest in the government’s forthcoming position and subsequent action by the justices, Navarro may be watching closely, too. Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal Newsletter for expert analysis on the top legal stories of the week, including updates from the Supreme Court and developments in the Trump administration’s legal cases.
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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