Former Trump White House official Peter Navarro followed by demonstrators leaves the U.S. Federal Courthouse in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Peter Navarro, Steve Bannon’s self-professed co-orchestrator of the bogus voter fraud strategy known as the “Green Bay Sweep,” has asked a federal judge to release him from prison and let him serve out the remainder of his contempt of Congress sentence on supervised release for 30 days.
Navarro, who also served as a trade adviser to former President Donald Trump, was sentenced to four months in prison for two misdemeanor counts for his refusal to comply with a subpoena from the House Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol. Navarro was convicted by a jury in Washington, D.C., in September.
He has made multiple attempts to have his sentence remanded or headed off altogether, including making requests to the Supreme Court but those have summarily failed.
According to an emergency motion for resentencing filed late Thursday, Navarro has asked the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to step in and modify his sentence to include a term of just 30 days supervised release no later than June 19.
“Dr. Navarro will then immediately be eligible to begin serving his term of supervised release and will conclude service of his sentence, both imprisonment and supervised released at approximately the same time,” his attorney Stanley Woodward wrote.
In the emergency motion, Navarro argues that when he was sentenced, the judge remarked how he needed to ensure the sentence was consistent with how others similarly charged had been treated. The judge directly referred to Steve Bannon.
A far right bloviator, Bannon, who served as a short-lived strategist to Trump and held a leadership role in his 2016 campaign, was sentenced to four months for contempt of Congress too after he defied a Jan. 6 committee subpoena. Bannon was convicted in July 2022.
But Bannon’s sentencing hearing was in October 2022 and he appealed in November 2023. Since then, he hasn’t served a day of his four-month sentence in prison, managing to stay out as he appeals. Bannon’s case went before U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols — a Trump appointee — and as the Washington Post reported in February, Nichols rejected claims from Bannon that Trump had failed to invoke privilege over him when he defied the committee’s subpoena. He also denied Bannon’s advice-of-counsel defense but nonetheless allowed the host of the War Room podcast to go free while the case is still in the air.
On Friday, however, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, upheld Bannon’s contempt conviction. Per the ruling, he won’t go to prison yet since the mandate was stayed for a week beyond any en banc decision if sought.
Navarro, meanwhile, is in prison.
U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, told Navarro at his sentencing hearing that “while there are some mitigating factors here that are not present in Mr. Bannon’s case, and there are some aggravating factors here that are not present in Mr. Bannon’s case.” the four month sentence was appropriate and Navarro self-surrendered to FDC Miami.
He is scheduled for release on July 17.
“Dr. Navarro’s term of imprisonment has been marred by the same political turmoil that gave rise to his prosecution,” his defense attorney argued, claiming that while in prison, he has been “denied opportunity to speak both with the press as well as with a member of Congress.”
“Indeed when the Director of the Bureau of Prisons was asked about why a sitting member of Congress could not speak to Dr. Navarro, he was informed that Dr. Navarro is, ‘too notorious’ to be interviewed,” the motion states.
The member of Congress was Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz. Gaetz, Navarro’s lawyer notes, recently tried to tour the same facility to interview a person convicted of Jan. 6-related crimes.
Woodward also notes he has been denied requests to meet with Navarro unless it’s on the weekend.
“Pertinent to this instant motion, upon information and belief, Dr. Navarro is the only prisoner at his facility serving a misdemeanor sentence and the only prisoner now eligible for early release under the First Step Act,” Woodward wrote.
Navarro should be applicable for release under the legislation since it states a low risk level prisoner can be put in home confinement for the shorter of 10% of the term of imprisonment of that prisoner or 6 months.
For a four month, or 120 day, sentence, 10% of Navarro’s sentence would be just 12 days and with home confinement rules under First Step, “given that [he] would not be released to home confinement until after he served 108 days, more than 85% of his term of confinement, Dr. Navarro should simply be released at that time.”
“Dr. Navarro can readily demonstrate he is not a danger to the community,” Woodward wrote.
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