Peter Navarro’s bid to stay out of prison was rejected by Chief Justice John Roberts last month. Now, the former Trump White House adviser is trying his luck with another justice.
He’ll almost certainly fail.
Navarro was sentenced to four months in prison for contempt of Congress in January after refusing to comply with a House Jan. 6 Committee subpoena. Trying to stay free pending appeal, he filed an application with the chief justice, who handles emergency requests from Washington courts. But in a March 18 opinion, Roberts wrote that he saw no basis to side with Navarro. The chief justice didn’t feel the need to get the rest of the court involved.
Navarro reported to prison the next day. But on Tuesday, he asked for a re-do with a different justice, Neil Gorsuch.
The Supreme Court’s rules generally allow such renewed requests. But there’s no reason to think this latest effort will succeed. Though Roberts could have referred Navarro’s initial request to the full court, the chief justice didn’t deny it randomly or without reason. He wrote an opinion explaining his view. In his letter Tuesday, Navarro’s counsel wrote that briefing in his appeal won’t be finished until July, after he’s scheduled to have already completed his sentence. It’s true that it’s only so helpful for defendants to get potential relief from convictions after they’ve served their time. But the reality here is that the door was likely closed on Navarro’s attempt to stay out pending appeal when Roberts rejected him. Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal Newsletter for weekly updates on the top legal stories, including news from the Supreme Court, the Donald Trump cases and more.
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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