Peter Navarro, a former White House adviser for the Trump administration, issued a defiant statement directly outside of a courthouse in Washington, D.C. this past Friday in the wake of his arrest by the FBI for alleged contempt of Congress.
On Friday, a grand jury indicted Navarro for two counts of contempt of Congress for allegedly not complying with a subpoena from the House committee that was looking into the event surrounding the riot that took place at the U.S. Capitol on the 6th of January last year. Navarro claimed that agents from the FBI arrested him as he was attempting to board a plane headed to Nashville.
“Congress has weaponized the investigatory powers of congress in a way which is unconstitutional,” stated Navarro on Friday in the wake of the court hearing about the indictment. “The people of America need to understand, Congress has the right to investigate, but only for non-punitive, legislative purposes. What that committee is doing is investigating for punitive purposes.”
In his statements, Navarro heavily criticized his treatment by the January 6 committee, the FBI, and President Joe Biden’s Justice Department. Navarro stated that the FBI completely disregarded all of his attempts and offers to cooperate with agents on any legal issues as a result of the subpoena from the committee. Instead, the squad of agents arrested him as he was attempting to board a plane headed to Nashville in order to appear on the television show of former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee.
“Today the punishment which was inflicted upon a man presumed innocent and innocent until proven guilty demonstrates the utter disregard for the Constitution and the law that the Department of Justice has,” claimed Navarro.
“They intercepted me getting on the plane and they put me in handcuffs, they bring me here, they put me in leg irons, they stick me in a cell,” he stated. “They just came with the full force of the federal government and put the hammer down trying to intimidate me.”
Navarro is slated to represent himself in the court hearing about his indictment. “Part of the Democrats strategy is to engage in what is called ‘lawfare,’ which is they use the legal system for effectively coercion and illicit ends. I do not want to spend several hundred thousand dollars on lawyers.”
Every single count of contempt of Congress could result in a consequence of one year in prison and a $100,000 fine. Originally, the committee subpoenaed Navarro back in February for a series of documents and a deposition that was based on the committee’s thoughts that he possessed “information relevant to the committee’s investigation,” stated the subpoena, as stated by the indictment.
Navarro is just the most recent White House official from the Trump administration to look down the barrel of an indictment in relation to the investigation being carried out concerning January 6th. The first of these other indictments was former Trump aid Steve Bannon which took place back in November.