Peter Navarro occupied a prominent place in President Trump’s administration, serving as Trump’s Senior Trade and Economic Advisor. (That was when the economy was booming and Americans of all colors, creeds, and political stripes were thriving.) On Friday, however, the FBI arrested Navarro, putting him in handcuffs and throwing him in a cell, because he refused to testify before the January 6 commission, which is arguably improperly constituted and therefore lacks the power to issue subpoenas. This is how totalitarians act when they gain power.
The arrest resulted from Merrick Garland convening a grand jury in D.C. to have it issue an indictment against Navarro. (The old saying is that a prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich but it’s even less work when the ham sandwich is a Republican in D.C.)
A federal grand jury indicted former Trump White House adviser Peter Navarro on criminal contempt of Congress charges after he refused to comply with a subpoena issued by the House Jan. 6 committee.
The Department of Justice announced the indictment Friday. The department has previously indicted former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon for contempt of Congress, throwing its weight behind the committee's subpoenas.
The FBI arrested Navarro Friday morning. In his first court appearance Friday afternoon, Navarro said that he was on his way to Nashville for a television appearance Friday morning, and that an FBI team let him get to the airport and try to board a plane before putting him in handcuffs. Navarro said during his court appearance he was put in a jail cell Friday.
Image: Peter Navarro. YouTube screen grab.
Navarro is 72 and not a flight risk—yet he was treated with less respect than the average gangbanger in Chicago or New York (or D.C. for that matter).
The arrest is especially ludicrous when one considers the arguably improper make-up of the January 6 Committee. Lawyers for subpoenaed witnesses have argued that the committee lacks the authority to issue those subpoenas or, indeed, do anything else because Pelosi didn’t comply with Section 2(a) of the Committee’s authorizing resolution: “Appointment of Members—The Speaker shall appoint 13 Members to the Select Committee, 5 of whom shall be appointed after consultation with the minority member.”
For that language to have meaning (and all statutory and legislative language must be construed to have meaning), the Committee must have five members representing the minority party’s interests. Yet when Minority Leader McCarthy recommended Jim Banks and Jim Jordan, Pelosi rejected them, vitiating the intended purpose of consultation; namely, that there are minority voices to prevent a kangaroo committee.
So, of course, the Democrats are running a purely kangaroo committee, with only two so-called “Republicans.” Both Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger despise Trump, conservatives, and anyone who isn’t willing to jettison the Constitution and the rule of law in order to destroy Trump and American conservatives. They no longer make even a pretense of siding with Republicans. No wonder people like Peter Navarro have refused to appear before something worse than the Tudor Star Chamber.
Still, Garland did have the authority to get that indictment. However, what was meant as a pure, brute-force display of political and police power was the way in which it was done. Just as was the case with the septuagenarian Roger Stone, the DOJ could have approached Navarro’s attorney and asked to have Navarro turn himself in. Instead, again as with Stone, a Democrat Attorney General opted to use humiliating and frightening tactics. Two physically harmless, elderly men, neither of whom was a flight risk, were treated like murderers. It’s a disgusting form of intimidation.
Navarro fully understood what was going on and was righteously angry:
What we’re seeing is something new in American politics: The Oval Office occupant is using the police state to arrest his political opposition. This is the start of something very ugly that cannot end well.
When Republicans retake the White House, and they almost certainly will unless Biden has managed to end any semblance of free and fair elections in America, they will (and, indeed, according to game theory, they must) treat the Democrats in the same way. What will help the Republicans in doing so is that Democrats have committed very real crimes, most notably a coup against a sitting president (that would be Trump), something that goes all the way up to the Obama White House.