By Sabrina Willmer | Bloomberg
Former White House trade adviser Peter Navarro — also a former UC Irvine professor — pleaded not guilty to criminal contempt and asked a federal judge to hold off on his trial so he could promote his book.
Navarro, who appeared Friday in federal court in Washington, entered the plea to both counts the US Justice Department brought against him — for declining to testify in the US House committee investigation of the January 2021 Capitol riot and for refusing to hand over documents in response to a subpoena from the panel.
Navarro, 72, is among a small group of advisers that Donald Trump turned to as he pushed false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. The contempt case against him comes amid the committee’s televised hearings into the insurrection and the events preceding it, including plans by Trump’s inner circle to prevent the certification by Congress of Joe Biden’s electoral victory.
In February, the panel sought documents from Navarro based on information that he and others developed a plan to delay the certification. It cited an excerpt from a Navarro book in which he called the strategy the “Green Bay Sweep” and wrote that it was the “last, best chance to snatch a stolen election from the Democrats’ jaws of deceit.”
Meanwhile the Justice Department’s investigation is in an aggressive phase marked by grand jury subpoenas including one focused on efforts to appoint electors in states Trump lost to reverse the result.
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