Prosecutors rested their case on Wednesday in the prison trial of Peter Navarro, who served as President Donald J. Trump’s business adviser, announcing he willfully left out lawmakers in refusing to look final yr ahead of the House committee investigating the Capitol assault.
After handing over their opening observation, executive legal professionals took simply 3 hours to introduce all their proof, arguing that convicting Mr. Navarro revolved round one simple query: Did he display contempt for Congress when he dismissed the committee’s subpoena for paperwork and testimony?
“This case is just about a guy who didn’t show up for his testimony? Yes, this case is that simple,” a prosecutor, John Crabb Jr., mentioned in Federal District Court in Washington. “But this case is also that important — we are a nation of laws, and Mr. Navarro acted like he was above the law.”
The protection additionally rested, calling no witnesses and presenting no proof, with ultimate arguments anticipated to start out Thursday morning. The rapid clip of the trial advised that the jury may just planned in a while after.
Mr. Navarro, 74, faces two counts of contempt of Congress, making him the second one best legit of Mr. Trump’s to stand prison fees after declining to cooperate with the House committee. If convicted, Mr. Navarro may just withstand a yr in prison and a high-quality of as much as $100,000 for every rely.
Stephen Okay. Bannon, who labored as a strategist and adviser to Mr. Trump in the early months of his management, was once additionally indicted on two counts of contempt of Congress after defying a subpoena from the committee. He was once convicted final summer time and sentenced to 4 months in jail, even though he stays unfastened whilst his attraction is pending.
Lawyers for Mr. Navarro, restricted in what protection they might make in court docket, sought to color him as a diligent coverage adviser who were given stuck up in fraught prison negotiations with the Jan. 6 committee.
One of his legal professionals, Stanley Woodward Jr., mentioned that the Justice Department’s advice that Mr. Navarro was once a essential witness to the panel’s investigation was once overstated, describing prosecutors’ opening observation as theatrical.
“It’s like one of those movies where you get nothing after the preview,” he mentioned, whilst Mr. Navarro, who stood at the back of his legal professionals’ desk, paced backward and forward and listened carefully.
The prosecution on Wednesday all for correspondence between Mr. Navarro and the Jan. 6 committee in February final yr, calling as witnesses 3 workforce participants at the panel who helped draft and serve the subpoena to Mr. Navarro.
David Buckley, the workforce director for the committee, and Daniel George, a senior investigative recommend, testified that the panel got here to view Mr. Navarro as some of the extra outstanding public officers sowing doubt concerning the integrity of the 2020 election.
The committee was once in particular in a three-part file Mr. Navarro wrote claiming in style voter fraud and a memoir he printed after he left the White House.
In the guide, Mr. Navarro laid out a technique he had devised with Mr. Bannon referred to as the Green Bay Sweep, meant to reject the result of the election in key swing states that were known as for Joseph R. Biden Jr. He described it as “our last, best chance to snatch a stolen election from the Democrats’ jaws of deceit.”
But Mr. Navarro rebuffed their requests for an interview with the committee, each males testified.
Mr. George, who officially notified Mr. Navarro concerning the subpoena, mentioned that ahead of he had even despatched the subpoena itself, which incorporated an inventory of paperwork the committee was once searching for, Mr. Navarro replied mins later with an e-mail that merely said, “executive privilege.”
“I didn’t make much of that because we hadn’t communicated to him what we wanted to speak about,” Mr. George mentioned.
Mr. Navarro and his legal professionals had been left to mount a circuitous protection after the pass judgement on presiding over the case, Amit P. Mehta, rejected their major argument ahead of the trial started: that Mr. Trump, who was once not president on the time, had directed him to forget about the subpoena and that he was once shielded via govt privilege. Mr. Navarro has persistently maintained out of doors court docket that he was once simply performing at the orders of Mr. Trump, who Mr. Navarro says had expressly requested him and different senior advisers to not cooperate with the committee.
Defense legal professionals on Wednesday as an alternative pinned blame at the House committee, announcing that Mr. Navarro had referred participants of the panel to Mr. Trump without delay, however lawmakers didn’t observe up with him to substantiate whether or not Mr. Navarro was once coated via any privilege.
Under cross-examination, Mr. George said that when Mr. Navarro to begin with replied to requests from the committee, participants didn’t method Mr. Trump or his legal professionals to elucidate whether or not he had expressly requested Mr. Navarro to not cooperate, mentioning govt privilege.