A former trade advisor to President Donald Trump reported to prison after the Supreme Court denied his bid to stay out from behind bars.
Peter Navarro was convicted in January after refusing to comply with a subpoena from the House Select Committee on Jan. 6. He had asked the United States Supreme Court to step in with no success.
Navarro reported to prison in Miami on March 19. He has been ordered to spend four months behind bars.
“This is not about me,” said Navarro during his televised remarks in Miami before turning himself in. “One of the big stories is about what is really an unprecedented assault on the constitutional separation of powers and the doctrine of executive privileges. … When I walk in that jail today, the justice system – such as it is – will have done a crippling blow to the constitutional separation of powers.”
The former presidential advisor had asked the Supreme Court to allow him to remain out on bail pending his appeal.
“For the first time in our nation’s history, a senior presidential advisor has been convicted of contempt of congress after asserting executive privilege over a congressional subpoena. Dr. Navarro has appealed and will raise a number of issues on appeal that he contends are likely to result in the reversal of his conviction, or a new trial,” the legal team wrote in the appeal.
On March 19, Justice John Roberts denied Navarro’s request. The justice agreed with a lower court's determination that Navarro had "forfeited" any challenge after the district court ruled that Trump had not invoked executive privileges.
“This application concerns only the question of whether the applicant, Peter Navarro, has met his burden to establish his entitlement to relief under the Bail Reform Act,” wrote Roberts, per The Hill. “I see no basis to disagree with the determination that Navarro forfeited those arguments.”
A panel of judges for the D.C. Court of Appeals rejected Navarro’s bid to stay out of prison on March 14 after finding that he is “unlikely to secure a new trial or reverse his conviction,” CBS News. The court did find Navarro reasonably believed he could not comply with the subpoena because Trump’s right to executive privilege.
Navarro warned that if the appeal of his conviction is denied “the constitutional separation of powers will be irreparably damaged and the doctrine of executive privilege dating back to George Washington will cease to function as an important safeguard for effective presidential decision-making.”
“There is much at stake here and it is worth the fight,” he wrote in a statement on X on March 18. “The partisan nature of the imprisoning of a top senior White House aide should chill the bones of every American. In Joe Biden’s weaponized justice system, a Democrat controlled Congress and Justice Department together with an Obama-appointed District Judge and three Obama-appointed Appeals Court judges drove the Navarro railroad right into prison. If anybody thinks these partisans and politicians in robes aren’t coming for Donald Trump, they must think twice now.”
Navarro will serve his sentence at a minimum-security prison.
