A federal grand jury on Friday indicted Peter Navarro, a White Home adviser to former President Donald J. Trump, for failing to adjust to a subpoena from the Home committee investigating the Capitol assault, even because the Justice Division declined to cost Mark Meadows and Dan Scavino Jr., two different high officers who’ve additionally refused to cooperate.
The indictment towards Mr. Navarro, handed up in Federal District Court docket in Washington, marked the primary time that an official who served in Mr. Trump’s White Home in the course of the occasions of Jan. 6, 2021, has been charged in reference to the investigation into the assault.
Prosecutors charged Mr. Navarro, 72, with what amounted to a misdemeanor course of crime for having failed to seem for a deposition or present paperwork to congressional investigators in response to a subpoena issued by the Home committee on Feb. 9. The indictment consists of two counts of legal contempt of Congress that every carry a most sentence of a yr in jail, in addition to a positive of as much as $100,000.
The Justice Division has declined to take comparable steps towards Mr. Meadows, Mr. Trump’s ultimate chief of employees, and Mr. Scavino, the deputy chief of employees, in keeping with folks acquainted with prosecutors’ choice and a letter reviewed by The New York Instances informing the highest Home counsel of it.
“Based mostly on the person information and circumstances of their alleged contempt, my workplace won’t be initiating prosecutions for legal contempt as requested within the referral towards Messrs. Meadows and Scavino,” Matthew M. Graves, the U.S. legal professional for the District of Columbia, wrote to Douglas N. Letter, the overall counsel of the Home, on Friday. “My workplace’s evaluate of every of the contempt referrals arising from the Jan. 6 committee’s investigation is full.”
Each Mr. Meadows and Mr. Scavino — who have been deeply concerned within the effort to overturn the 2020 election — engaged in weeks of negotiations with the committee’s attorneys, and Mr. Meadows turned over greater than 9,000 paperwork to the panel, earlier than the Home voted to cost them with contempt.
Against this, Mr. Navarro and his ally Stephen Ok. Bannon, who has additionally been charged with contempt, fought the committee’s subpoenas from Day 1 and by no means entered into negotiations.
Requested for remark, Mr. Meadows’s lawyer, George J. Terwilliger III, mentioned, “The consequence speaks for itself.”
A spokesman for the Justice Division didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark. A lawyer for Mr. Scavino declined to remark.
For his half, Mr. Navarro appeared in court docket on Friday afternoon, talking on his personal behalf and telling a federal Justice of the Peace decide that the congressional subpoena he was served with was “unlawful” and “unenforceable.”
On the court docket listening to, he forged himself as a sufferer of an unfair system run by Democrats bent on destroying him and Mr. Trump.
“There are larger issues at play than whether or not I am going to jail,” Mr. Navarro mentioned. “And that’s why I’m standing right here.”
He additionally complained that though he lives near F.B.I. headquarters, federal brokers arrested him on the door of an airplane as he was on his technique to Nashville.
“This isn’t the best way that America is meant to perform,” he went on, including, “They’re taking part in hardball.”
A former White Home commerce adviser who undertook in depth efforts to maintain Mr. Trump in workplace after the 2020 election, Mr. Navarro is the second high-ranking former presidential aide to be charged with contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the committee. Mr. Bannon, a former high aide to Mr. Trump, was indicted in November on comparable costs.
The indictment towards Mr. Navarro got here almost two months after the Home voted principally alongside get together strains to suggest legal costs towards him. The identical vote additionally really useful a contempt indictment towards Mr. Scavino.
The Home voted in January to suggest that Mr. Meadows be charged with contempt.
“Upon receiving every referral, my workplace performed an intensive investigation and evaluation of the individualized information and circumstances surrounding every contempt allegation to find out whether or not to provoke a legal prosecution,” Mr. Graves wrote to Mr. Letter. “These investigations and analyses have been performed by and supervised by skilled prosecutors. Every referral has been analyzed individually based mostly on the information and circumstances of the alleged contempt developed via my workplace’s investigation.”
The Home subpoena that Mr. Navarro obtained sought paperwork and testimony about an effort to overturn the election that he had billed because the “Inexperienced Bay Sweep.” The plan known as for lawmakers in key swing states to staff with Republican members of Congress and Vice President Mike Pence to reject the outcomes that confirmed Joseph R. Biden Jr. had gained the election and provides Mr. Trump the victory.
The subpoena additionally talked about a name Mr. Navarro participated in with Mr. Trump and his attorneys on Jan. 2, 2021, by which they tried to influence tons of of state lawmakers to affix the hassle.
Mr. Navarro additionally wrote a 36-page report claiming election fraud as a part of what he known as an “immaculate deception” that he mentioned he made positive was distributed to Republican members of Congress.
There isn’t a proof of widespread fraud within the 2020 election, and the Jan. 6 committee has described the claims in Mr. Navarro’s report as having been “discredited in public reporting, by state officers and courts.”
The indictment comes days after Mr. Navarro filed a lawsuit towards the Home committee, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the U.S. legal professional for the District of Columbia, by which he questioned the authority and validity of the inquiry.
Within the lawsuit, Mr. Navarro additionally revealed that he had not too long ago obtained one other subpoena, this one from a federal grand jury in Washington. That subpoena sought paperwork from him associated to any communications he could have had with Mr. Trump or his attorneys.
Mr. Navarro has claimed that as a result of Mr. Trump invoked govt privilege to bar the disclosure of data requested by the Jan. 6 investigators, he’s prevented from complying with the subpoena. Prosecutors have been probably desirous about how carefully Mr. Navarro was in contact with the previous president or his attorneys with a purpose to assess that protection towards the contempt of Congress cost.
“The chief privilege invoked by President Trump isn’t mine to waive,” Mr. Navarro has repeatedly mentioned.
Mr. Bannon has additionally sought to argue that he doesn’t need to comply along with his personal subpoena due to Mr. Trump’s claims of govt privilege. A trial in his case is tentatively scheduled for July.
Mr. Bannon is arguing that the committee isn’t a reputable investigative physique however a politically motivated one, citing the truth that two of its members have written books that presuppose who’s responsible for the Capitol riot despite the fact that the inquiry has not ended.
Whereas contempt of Congress costs are not often introduced, the instances filed towards Mr. Navarro and Mr. Bannon counsel that the Justice Division is prepared to take a troublesome stance towards at the least a few of Mr. Trump’s former aides who’ve stonewalled the committee’s efforts.
The choice to not cost Mr. Meadows and Mr. Scavino signifies that there are limits to that method, notably with regards to high White Home officers who may extra plausibly argue that their communications with the president have been privileged.
The fees towards Mr. Navarro come at a politically delicate second: one week earlier than the committee is poised to start a sequence of high-profile hearings on its findings.
Mr. Navarro has taken an aggressive stance towards the committee, particularly with regard to its Democratic members. In his lawsuit, he vowed payback towards Democrats ought to Republicans retake the White Home and Congress in 2024.
“If I’m not useless or in jail,” he wrote, “I’ll lead the cost.”
At his court docket listening to, Mr. Navarro expressed comparable disdain for the authorized continuing.
A federal Justice of the Peace decide, Zia M. Faruqui, launched him from custody with a typical set of circumstances, principally easy restrictions on Mr. Navarro’s journey privileges, noting that he understood the defendant was annoyed by them.
Mr. Navarro rejected the concept he was annoyed.
“I’m, allow us to say, upset in our republic,” he declared.
Maggie Haberman contributed reporting.
