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 in opposition to 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 contains two counts of felony contempt of Congress that every carry a most sentence of a 12 months in jail, in addition to a high quality of as much as $100,000.
The Justice Division has declined to take related steps in opposition to Mr. Meadows, Mr. Trump’s closing chief of workers, and Mr. Scavino, the deputy chief of workers, in keeping with individuals conversant in prosecutors’ choice and a letter reviewed by The New York Instances informing the highest Home counsel of it.
“Primarily based on the person details and circumstances of their alleged contempt, my workplace won’t be initiating prosecutions for felony contempt as requested within the referral in opposition to Messrs. Meadows and Scavino,” Matthew M. Graves, the U.S. lawyer for the District of Columbia, wrote to Douglas N. Letter, the final 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 legal professionals, and Mr. Meadows turned over greater than 9,000 paperwork to the panel, earlier than the Home voted to cost them with contempt.
In contrast, Mr. Navarro and his ally Stephen Okay. 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 outcome 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.
In a press release, the leaders of the committee applauded Mr. Navarro’s indictment however urged the Justice Division to supply “better readability” on its rationale for not charging Mr. Meadows or Mr. Scavino.
“We discover the choice to reward Mark Meadows and Dan Scavino for his or her continued assault on the rule of legislation puzzling,” mentioned the leaders, Representatives Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi, and Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming. “Mr. Meadows and Mr. Scavino unquestionably have related information about President Trump’s position within the efforts to overturn the 2020 election and the occasions of Jan. 6.”
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 greater issues at play than whether or not I’m 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 option to Nashville.
“This isn’t the best way that America is meant to perform,” he went on, including, “They’re enjoying 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 related prices.
The indictment in opposition to Mr. Navarro got here practically two months after the Home voted principally alongside social gathering traces to advocate felony prices in opposition to him. The identical vote additionally advisable a contempt indictment in opposition to Mr. Scavino.
The Home voted in January to advocate that Mr. Meadows be charged with contempt.
“Upon receiving every referral, my workplace carried out a radical investigation and evaluation of the individualized details and circumstances surrounding every contempt allegation to find out whether or not to provoke a felony prosecution,” Mr. Graves wrote to Mr. Letter. “These investigations and analyses have been carried out by and supervised by skilled prosecutors. Every referral has been analyzed individually based mostly on the details and circumstances of the alleged contempt developed by means of 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 crew 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 legal professionals on Jan. 2, 2021, by which they tried to steer tons of of state lawmakers to hitch the trouble.
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 is no such thing as 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 in opposition to the Home committee, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the U.S. lawyer 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 just lately obtained one other subpoena, this one from a federal grand jury in Washington. That subpoena sought paperwork from him associated to any communications he might have had with Mr. Trump or his legal professionals.
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 almost certainly excited by how intently Mr. Navarro was in contact with the previous president or his legal professionals with a purpose to assess that protection in opposition to the contempt of Congress cost.
“The chief privilege invoked by President Trump is just not mine to waive,” Mr. Navarro has repeatedly mentioned.
Mr. Bannon has additionally sought to argue that he doesn’t should 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 is just not a respectable investigative physique however a politically motivated one, citing the truth that two of its members have written books that presuppose who’s accountable for the Capitol riot though the inquiry has not ended.
Whereas contempt of Congress prices are not often introduced, the instances filed in opposition to Mr. Navarro and Mr. Bannon recommend that the Justice Division is keen to take a tricky stance in opposition to at the very 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 on the subject of high White Home officers who might extra plausibly argue that their communications with the president have been privileged.
The fees in opposition to 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 in opposition to 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 related disdain for the authorized continuing.
A federal Justice of the Peace decide, Zia M. Faruqui, launched him from custody with a normal set of circumstances, principally easy restrictions on Mr. Navarro’s journey privileges, noting that he understood the defendant was pissed off by them.
Mr. Navarro rejected the concept he was pissed off.
“I’m, allow us to say, upset in our republic,” he declared.
Maggie Haberman contributed reporting.
