Peter Navarro Delivers Remarks Before Reporting to Federal Prison for Contempt of a Congressional J6 Subpoena
People have asked me why I have remained relatively quiet about the legal issue and targeting of Peter Navarro by a weaponized DOJ and Congress. I will explain in greater detail after the news from today.
Peter Navarro was a former adviser to President Trump and the lead of the coronavirus task force. Yesterday, Chief Justice John Roberts issued a short opinion rejecting Navarro’s effort to have the Supreme Court intervene and stay his sentence.
Mr. Navarro was charged with contempt of Congress, and was prosecuted by the DOJ and convicted in September of two counts of contempt of Congress for refusing to provide testimony and documents to the J6 House Select Committee investigating the protest at the U.S. Capitol. [Note, most of you know I received a similar subpoena from them, so I have a slightly different perspective than most.]
[…] Navarro spoke Tuesday morning in a strip mall in West Miami near the prison where he will serve four months. “I will walk proudly in there to do my time,” Navarro said. “I will gather strength from this: Donald John Trump is the nominee.” Navarro called the case an “unprecedented assault on the constitutional separation of powers.” (media story) WATCH:
I have a great deal of sympathy for Navarro. I firmly believe he was unfairly targeted by the J6 committee and a weaponized DOJ who were looking for any opportunity to target people in Donald Trump’s orbit – including Navarro and Steve Bannon. I regard Navarro as a really awesome ally, and functionally very smart and apt at the responsibilities he held in the White House. Navarro is a good man.
Navarro was charged with failure to provide testimony and documents to Congress. Navarro argued that executive privilege covered his refusal to provide testimony and documents.
The executive privilege that covers private conversation is held by President Trump and cannot be, should not be, waived by any advisor to the president. However, there is a key element in the executive privilege aspect that is mostly overlooked by righteous pundits and conservative analysts as it pertains specifically to Navarro.
Notice how there has been no report of Peter Navarro asking President Trump or his legal counselors if they would agree to waive privilege in regard to his conversations and communication with the office of the president. Apparently, Navarro never asked POTUS or the legal team if compliance with the subpoena was diligent from the perspective of the executive. The absence of this approach is key and is part of my angst with the Navarro targeting.
Navarro never held any information, content, communication with, or conversation with President Trump that represented a threat to the president. There simply wasn’t any conversation that would put the office of the presidency at risk, nor Donald Trump himself, if he gave testimony about conversation, while being represented by his lawyers and the legal representative of President Trump’s stood by to monitor the testimony and guard the executive privilege.
Secondly, the documents could be -and likely were- obtained by the J6 committee through electronic retrieval on their own. On the document issue, it’s almost certain the committee issued subpoenas to email providers, cell phone providers, etc. and had the documentary information anyway. The J6 lawyers would be looking for Navarro to filter, delete, hide or ¹change a document…. not as much the content therein. The legal risk within documents, assuming that Navarro never advocated for anything illegal, is simply a risk from non-production. That’s it. [SEE, Trump #1 RULE: If you don’t want documents used against you, don’t create them.]
[¹Remember, that’s what burned George Papadopoulos]
Again, the J6 people can -I would guarantee did- retrieve every document they wanted; the non-production by the target is a silly hill to die on. The truth has no agenda, nor can the truth be a weapon, if the truth of the documents did not present a legal threat by themselves. Considering that Navarro is *not* the principal holder of the privilege, this non-production is like shooting yourself in the foot.
Had Navarro simply asked the White House and President Trump legal counsel about whether he should comply or not, and then put the burden of executive privilege on them, it would be the White House and the full weight of the Office of the Presidency defending Navarro from testimony and representing Trump’s legal interests.
I hope people can grasp what I am saying.
Ask the principal, that’s Donald Trump, if he wants to apply executive privilege. If he does not, then give honest testimony about facts, conversations and events that present no legal threat to the principal. The only reason to avoid this simple process is – I believe in this instance – the pride, ego and a willingness to enter into a fight where all the power is aligned against you.
I understand why being targeted by a weaponized government makes a person feel intensely angered and would trigger the fight instinct. However, prudence, calm thoughts and reasonable intelligent thinking can ensure that BRUTAL HONESTY, which is to say carefully applied and strategic “extreme compliance,” is the best weapon against the bastards.
Peter Navarro is a good man, a very good man, who unfortunately made some strategic legal mistakes. I have a great deal of sympathy for Peter Navarro and feel he has been very unjustly targeted.
Also….. STUDY THIS GUY!
Background PART 1
Background PART 2
Don’t hate me until you have read both parts.
Love to all,
Sundance
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