Trump Ex-Aide Navarro Faces Prison With Supreme Court Rebuff
(Bloomberg) -- A US Supreme Court justice refused to shield Donald Trump’s former White House adviser Peter Navarro from having to report to prison Tuesday, rejecting a request in a case with roots in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
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In a one-paragraph order, Chief Justice John Roberts turned down Navarro’s bid to avoid the start of a four-month prison sentence, imposed after a jury found him guilty of ignoring a subpoena from the House committee investigating the 2021 assault on the Capitol.
Roberts’s order leaves open the possibility that Navarro could renew his request with another justice, who by custom would refer the matter to the full nine-member court.
Navarro argued that executive privilege precluded his prosecution and that he stands a strong chance of having the conviction reversed on appeal. In refusing to let him remain free while the case is on appeal, a federal appeals court said he waited too long to make key parts of his argument.
Roberts said Monday he saw “no basis to disagree with the determination that Navarro forfeited those arguments in the release proceeding.”
The Justice Department urged the Supreme Court to reject Navarro’s emergency request, saying that even if executive privilege applied, it wouldn’t excuse the former trade adviser’s “total noncompliance” with the the subpoena.
Navarro is one of two former Trump aides to be convicted of contempt of Congress, along with Steve Bannon, whose own four-month prison sentence was put on hold by a different trial judge while that case is on appeal.
The case is Navarro v. United States, 23A843.
(Updates with excerpt from Roberts order in fifth paragraph.)
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