Who Is Peter Navarro?

My VIP for this week is Peter Navarro who was a White House trade policy official during the Trump administration. According to Katelynn Richardson at The Daily Signal, Navarro has been ordered to report to a prison in Miami by March 19 to start his four-month sentence.

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta denied in February Navarro’s request to stay his prison sentence while he appeals his conviction on charges of contempt of Congress because he defied a subpoena from the January 6 committee in the House. On Sunday, Navarro reiterated his request for an appeals court to pause his sentence. His attorneys noted in his appeal: 

Dr. Navarro has now been ordered to report to the custody of the Bureau of Prisons, FCI Miami, on or before 2 p.m. EDT on March 29, 2024. Accordingly, Dr. Navarro respectfully reiterates his request for an administrative stay so as to permit the court to resolve the instant motion. Should this court deny Dr. Navarro’s motion, he respectfully requests an administrative stay so as to permit the Supreme Court review of this court’s denial.

Navarro is one of several advisers to Trump that chose a prison sentence to submitting to what he considered an illegal subpoena from an illegal House committee. The FBI could have walked across the street in Washington, D.C., to arrest him in his office. However, they chose to arrest him in the busy Reagan National Airport in Arlington, Virginia, while he was on his way to a speaking engagement in Nashville. He claimed that the FBI put him in handcuffs and leg irons just to show their power and to embarrass him.