A federal judge on Tuesday rejected a bid for a new trial for Peter Navarro, a Trump White House official convicted of contempt of Congress for refusing to cooperate with a congressional investigation into the attack on the Capitol.
Navarro, who served as White House trade adviser under President Donald Trump, was found guilty by a jury in Washington federal court of ignoring a subpoena for documents and a statement from the House of Representatives committee on January 6. He will be sentenced later this month.
Navarro’s attorneys argued he was entitled to a new trial, saying jurors may have been improperly influenced by political protesters as they took a break outside the courthouse before announcing a verdict in September.
But U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta said in his ruling that Navarro failed to show that “any prejudice resulted from the jury’s eight-minute recess outside the courthouse.” Jurors had contact only with each other and with the court official accompanying them, no one approached the jurors and “there were no activities that resembled a ‘protest,’” the judge wrote.
“Defendant not only fails to demonstrate prejudice, he has also failed to demonstrate that any juror was actually exposed to any improper external influence,” Mehta wrote.
An attorney for Navarro declined to comment on Tuesday’s ruling.
Navarro was the second Trump aide to face contempt charges from Congress, after former White House adviser Steve Bannon. Bannon was convicted of two counts and sentenced to four months in prison, although he is free pending appeal.
Navarro has vowed to appeal the verdict, saying the “stone had fallen” after a judge ruled he could not fight the charges, saying he could not cooperate with the commission because Trump, a Republican, had an appeal done on executive privilege. Because the defense could not invoke the executive privilege argument at trial, the defense argued that Navarro had not acted “intentionally” in failing to comply.
Navarro’s sentencing is scheduled for January 25 in federal court in Washington. He was convicted of two felony counts of contempt of Congress, both punishable by up to one year in prison.
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Richer reported from Boston.