- Navarro, a former political aide and trade adviser to Trump, reported Tuesday to the federal correctional institution in Miami.
- Navarro remained defiant as he surrendered, saying his incarceration dealt a ‘crippling blow’ to the separation of powers between the president and Congress.
- Federal judges up to the Supreme Court refused to postpone Navarro’s imprisonment while he appeals his conviction.
Peter Navarro, a political aide to former President Donald Trump who served as a trade adviser in the White House, was jailed Tuesday for contempt of Congress. He is the first former Trump aide to be imprisoned for efforts related to trying to steal the 2020 election.
Navarro, 74, was sentenced to four months in prison for defying subpoenas from the House committee that investigated the Capitol attack of Jan. 6, 2021. He remained defiant before surrendering at the federal correctional institution in Miami, a low-security facility.
“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 told reporters across the street from the prison.
The facility has previously housed Panamanian military leader Manuel Noriega, boy-band creator Lou Pearlman and NFL safety Darren Sharper.
Navarro had asked to remain free while he appealed his conviction and sentence. But Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts refused Monday to step in, saying he had “no basis to disagree” with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals or U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta.
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Roberts noted the decision doesn’t affect the actual appeal.
Navarro contends Trump invoked executive privilege to prevent him from testifying or providing documents to the committee about confidential administration communications.
But Mehta ruled there was no evidence Trump asserted the privilege at the time. Even if Trump had, Mehta ruled Navarro was obligated to appear before the committee to refuse to answer specific questions.
Prosecutors argued Navarro deserved no shield from testifying even if Trump asserted the privilege because the lawmakers wanted to ask about his campaign activities rather than government policy.
The Jan. 6 committee wanted to question Navarro because he wrote, in his 2021 book “In Trump Time,” about the scheme to delay certification of President Joe Biden’s election. Navarro described the scheme as the “Green Bay Sweep” and said it was the “last, best chance to snatch a stolen election from the Democrats’ jaws of deceit.”
Navarro said in a later interview that Trump was “on board with the strategy,” according to the committee.
Another Trump aide, political strategist Steve Bannon, also refused to cooperate with the committee. He was convicted of contempt of Congress and also sentenced to four months in jail, but he remains free on appeal.
A ‘prison consultant’
Navarro will be held at federal Bureau of Prisons satellite camp for elderly male inmates located next to a zoo. He also has retained the services of a “prison consultant” to ease his transition.
“Not only can you hear the lions … you can hear the lions roar every morning,” Sam Mangel, Navarro’s prison consultant, told CNN.
“He’s nervous,” Mangel added, about Navarro. “Anybody, regardless of the length of their sentence, is going into an unknown world.”
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