President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ) is showing no signs of slowing down on its agenda to crack down on the Democrats’ political rivals.
Biden’s DOJ is now pushing for President Donald Trump’s former advisor Dr. Peter Narravo to be sentenced to six months in prison for standing up to the Democrats’ Jan. 6 “investigation.”
Navarro, a staunch Trump ally, was convicted in September of contempt of Congress in Washington’s federal courthouse of two misdemeanor counts.
He was charged after refusing to cooperate with an anti-Trump House investigation into the protests at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Both counts are punishable by up to a year behind bars.
The Democrats’ weaponized Jan. 6 Committee had issued a subpoena in February 2022.
The subpoena sought a deposition and documents from Navarro.
However, Navarro refused to comply, according to the indictment.
A defense attorney argued Navarro did not purposely ignore the House Jan. 6 Committee.
In a 20-page sentencing memo submitted Thursday night, Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Aloi said they were seeking the sentence because of Navarro’s “bad-faith strategy” of “sustained, deliberate contempt of Congress.”
“The defendant, like the rioters at the Capitol, put politics, not country, first, and stonewalled Congress’s investigation,” Aloi wrote in their sentencing memo.
“The defendant chose allegiance to former President Donald Trump over the rule of law.”
Prosecutors wrote that Navarro deserves “severe punishment.”
Biden’s DOJ also wants Navarro to be fined $200,000.
Navarro is set to be sentenced on January 25 in Federal District Court in Washington.
He had told prosecutors that his testimony was barred by executive privilege and declined to participate in their politically motivated probe.
Prosecutors said Navarro should have handed over what material he could and flagged any questions or documents believed to be protected under executive privilege.
They said much of the material the committee sought was already publicly available.
“The factual record in this case is replete with proof that with respect to the Committee’s subpoena, the Defendant consistently shielded his defiance behind claims of executive privilege he knew to be meritless, and did so because of his contempt for the Committee and its mission,” the memo states.
Prosecutors said that Navarro knew Trump had not actually asserted executive privilege and that the only evidence he could provide was a November 2021 press release.
“At no time did the Defendant provide the Committee with any evidence supporting his assertion that the former President had invoked executive privilege over the information the Committee’s subpoena sought from the Defendant, or otherwise challenge the Committee’s authority or composition,” Aloi wrote.
“The Court was left with only the Defendant’s fan fiction version of what the Defendant wished or hoped the former President might have wanted but left unsaid.”
Navarro’s lawyers, citing executive immunity, said that the subpoena flew in the face of the notion that a president could direct his subordinates to refuse to testify before Congress, according to the New York Times.
They wrote in their memo that “history is replete” with people who “have refused to comply with congressional subpoenas, and Dr. Navarro’s sentence should not be disproportionate from those similarly situated individuals.”
Navarro was the second Trump aide to face contempt of Congress charges after former White House adviser Steve Bannon, who was convicted of two counts.
Bannon was sentenced to four months behind bars, though he has been free pending appeal.
The House has also voted to hold former Trump aide Dan Scavino and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows in contempt of Congress.
However, the DOJ has not prosecuted them, yet.
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