White House economic advisor Peter Navarro looks down from the steps of Air Force One as he waits to depart with U.S. President Donald Trump for travel to Ohio and New Jersey at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, U.S., August 6, 2020.
Joshua Roberts | Reuters
The select House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot issued a subpoena seeking testimony and records from Peter Navarro, who had served as trade advisor to former President Donald Trump.
The committee said Wednesday that it wants to question Navarro because of his own published statements and independent reporting that indicated he was involved in efforts to delay Congress’s certification of the 2020 election, which was won by President Joe Biden.
Those efforts to undo Biden’s win reportedly involved former top Trump White House aide Steve Bannon and others.
“In his book [“In Trump Time”], Mr. Navarro described this plan as the ‘Green Bay Sweep,’ ” the panel noted in a statement.
“In an interview, Mr. Navarro reportedly added that former President Trump was ‘on board with the strategy,’ as were ‘more than 100’ members of Congress. Mr. Navarro also released on his website a three-part report, dubbed the ‘Navarro Report,’ repeating many claims of purported fraud in the election that have been discredited in public reporting, by state officials, and courts,” the committee said.
The panel is probing not only the Jan. 6, 2021, invasion of the Capitol by Trump supporters, but also the events leading up to it, and the actions of the White House while the riot was occurring. The riot for hours disrupted the confirmation of Biden’s victory by a joint session of Congress.
“Mr. Navarro appears to have information directly relevant to the Select Committee’s investigation into the causes of the January 6th attack on the Capitol,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., the panel’s chairman.
“He hasn’t been shy about his role in efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election and has even discussed the former President’s support for those plans. More than 500 witnesses have provided information in our investigation, and we expect Mr. Navarro to do so as well,” Thompson said.
Navarro in a statement to CNBC noted that Trump had invoked executive privilege in response to the Jan. 6 inquiry and said that he, Navarro, did not have the power to waive that privilege as it applied to him.
In providing that statement, Navarro said that CNC either had to publish its text in full, or not at all. CNBC did not agree to that condition.
Bannon, in his refusal to comply with a subpoena from the committee, also had cited executive privilege. Bannon later was charged with criminal contempt of Congress.
And Trump lost a court battle to prevent the House panel from receiving hundreds of pages of White House records. During that legal fight, Trump had argued that the records were exempt from being surrendered on the grounds of executive privilege.
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