President Donald Trump's senior counselor Peter Navarro was swiftly fact-checked after claiming during a CNBC interview that Democrats sent him to prison as a political attack, asserting that leftists went after him how "they got" Charlie Kirk, the far-right activist who was assassinated last week.
Navarro, who also served during Trump's first administration and participated in attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 general election, holds the distinction of being the first former White House official imprisoned on a contempt-of-Congress conviction.
Navarro faced charges of criminal contempt for failing to comply with congressional subpoenas, similar to former Trump ally Steve Bannon, who was convicted in a similar case and later appealed. Navarro previously claimed that the trials against him are "very expensive" and said they are an example of Democrats using "lawfare" to crush their political opponents.
He said the following to CNBC:
"There's a disturbing asymmetry between what the left is doing to us and what we're not doing to them. ... I was in the first administration all four years. Every single person I was in with suffered from some kind of lawfare. At minimum it was Dan Scavino, Mark Meadows ran up millions of dollars in legal bills."
"Bannon and I went to prison. We had the president trying to be put in prison by four different courts, two assassination attempts. Now they got Charlie."
Then one CNBC host chimed in:
"You went to prison for refusing... it was contempt of Congress that sent you there."
Navarro replied:
"I went to prison because it was my duty as presidential adviser to refuse the subpoena. That was the policy of the Department of Justice for more than 50 years. There was no dispute about that. They changed the policy to put me in."
You can hear what Navarro said in the video below.
- YouTube www.youtube.com
Navarro was quickly called out for twisting the facts behind his imprisonment.
Navarro's trial, presided over by District Judge Amit Mehta, had broad implications for congressional oversight and executive privilege.
Judge Mehta ruled against Navarro's assertion that his conversations with then-President Trump were protected under executive privilege, calling it "pretty weak sauce." Mehta stated that Navarro had not provided specific evidence to support his executive privilege claim, leading to the rejection of this defense.
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