Ex-Trump adviser Peter Navarro sentenced to prison for contempt of Congress

Former Trump White House adviser Peter Navarro was sentenced Thursday to four months in prison after he was convicted in September of two counts of contempt of Congress for refusing to testify and provide documents to the House Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Federal prosecutors were seeking six months in prison for each charge, saying Navarro, "like the rioters at the Capitol, put politics, not country, first, and stonewalled Congress’s investigation," and that he "chose allegiance to former President Donald Trump over the rule of law."

NBC News reported, "Navarro helped spread misinformation about the 2020 election after Trump's loss and issued a report that Trump falsely said proved that it was statistically 'impossible' for him to have lost the election. Trump referred to the report in his infamous 'will be wild' tweet on Dec. 19, 2020, encouraging supporters to travel to Washington for a 'Big protest' on Jan. 6. That tweet, many Jan. 6 defendants have said, is what drew them to Washington."

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An appeal of Navarro's conviction was rejected earlier this month.

In their sentencing memo, federal prosecutors compared Navarro to former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, saying that throughout the case, he "exploited his notoriety — through courthouse press conferences, his books, and through podcasts — to display to the public the reason for his failure to comply with the Committee’s subpoena," which prosecutors say was "a disregard for government processes and the law, and in particular, the work of the Committee."

"The Defendant wrote a book on the very topic that was the subject of the Committee’s subpoena. He was happy to tell the world what he knew — but not Congress," prosecutors wrote.

Navarro's lawyers argued that he had "accepted responsibility" for his crime, but Judge Amit Mehta said that, in Navarro's sentencing memo, he accused the Department of Justice of a politicized prosecution.

“The idea that somehow he has exhibited clear demonstration of acceptance [of responsibility] is sort of hard to reconcile with the plain reading of those words," he said.