Trump Advisor Peter Navarro Discovers That Blowing Off A Grand Jury Can Be Bad For Your Health

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(Pete Marovich/The New York Times/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Donald Trump’s econ crank Peter Navarro is having a bad day. The former White House economic advisor just got indicted for contempt of Congress after refusing to testify or turn over documents to the January 6 Select Committee about his role in fomenting the Capitol Riot. In retrospect, the decision to act as his own counsel and ignore subpoenas from both Congress and the grand jury may have been a strategically unwise course of action.

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It’s a possibility.

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Navarro, an economist who fancies himself an epidemiologist, an immunologist, and an expert on the electoral college, was so confident of his legal chops that he not only lawsplained executive privilege to the Committee, he actually filed a pro se suit this week against both the Committee and the US Attorney in DC, Matthew Graves, for issuing a grand jury subpoena for his testimony. But it turns out it takes more than 88 pages of shouting “fruit of the poison tree” over and over again to ward off the Justice Department.

As US District Judge Randolph Moss patiently explained yesterday, Local Criminal Rule 6.1 provides that grand jury matters must be made under seal, assigned to the Chief Judge, and docketed under the extant grand jury case number. You can’t commingle lawsuits contesting a grand jury subpoena and congressional subpoena, because that’s not how any of this works. Which is probably something a competent lawyer could have told Navarro if he’d bothered to hire one!

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In his book, Navarro detailed the plot he cooked up with Steve Bannon, another contempt of Congress indictment winner, to overturn Joe Biden’s electoral college victory. They dubbed their plan The Green Bay Sweep, a name he’s proudly bragged about in the media for months, despite insisting that he can’t discuss it with the Committee because of executive privilege.

Here he is just last night explaining his super-sound legal reasoning to MSNBC’s Ari Melber.

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"You do realize these investigators can hear you when you talk on TV?": Ari Melber confronts former Trump adviser Peter Navarro on his "right not to talk" with the Jan. 6 committee pic.twitter.com/VXa3yHf6Uu

— MSNBC (@MSNBC) June 2, 2022

“You do realize these investigators can hear you when you talk on TV,” Melber reminded his guest, whose areas of expertise do not appear to include object permanence.

The grand jury subpoena, which requested the honor of his appearance on June 2, appeared to be probing the basis of Navarro’s claim of executive privilege. While Navarro’s suit was very specific on the Biden administration’s attempt to waive privilege — an attempt Navarro classified as illegitimate — he merely waved his hands in the direction of privilege and stated conclusorily that Trump had asserted it. Steve Bannon claimed the same, although it turned out that Trump’s privilege assertion was significantly less broad than his attorney Robert Costello had described them.

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Whether Navarro got a similar mixed message from Trump’s lawyer Justin Clark isn’t clear. But whatever happened, Navarro can’t claim attorney-client privilege over it, because he failed to hire a lawyer. Womp womp.

Apparently Navarro didn’t show up yesterday, but that didn’t stop the grand jury from returning a two-count indictment charging him with contempt. As of this writing, he’s in federal custody and is scheduled to appear in court at 2:30 p.m. Which is probably not how he thought this whole thing was going to shake out.

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Let’s see if he stays pro se or has a latter day conversion to the religion of LAWYER UP, IDIOT. Also, it’s Shut the Fuck Up Friday, so maybe he’ll start celebrating that holiday, too.

Navarro v. Pelosi [Docket via Court Listener]
US v. Navarro [Docket via Court Listener]

Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.

Topics

Courts, Donald Trump, Government, January 6th, liz dye, Peter Navarro