The Biden White House has notified disgraced ex-national security adviser Michael Flynn and former trade adviser to President Donald Trump Peter Navarro that it plans to deny claims of executive privilege they might put forward as investigators on the Jan. 6 committee continue their probe of the Capitol attack.
The warnings to the Trump allies were scooped by Axios on Tuesday, coming by way of two letters from Biden’s White House Deputy Counsel Jonathan Su.
In the letter to Flynn’s attorney David Warrington, Su spelled it out: Flynn stopped being an employee of the White House in 2017. If he tries to apply executive privilege from any point thereafter as he fights off a subpoena from the Jan. 6 committee, Biden’s White House won’t help him.
“To the extent any privileges could apply to General Flynn’s conversations with the former President or White House staff after the conclusion of his tenure, President Biden has determined that the assertion of executive privilege is not in the national interest and therefore is not justified,” Su wrote.
Su Letter to Flynn Atty Re Executive Priv by Daily Kos on Scribd
This is especially the case, Su noted, over matters related to “events within the White House on or about Jan. 6, attempts to use the Department of Justice to advance a false narrative that the 2020 election was tainted by widespread fraud; and other efforts to alter election results or obstruct the transfer of power.”
Flynn’s attorney could not immediately be reached for comment by Daily Kos on Tuesday but The Washington Post reported that Warrington responded sharply to the deputy White House counsel in a letter.
“I do not know whether your letter was prompted by some event, information received, a request by a third-party, or if it is simply the type of letter the White House Counsel’s Office is sending to all former Executive Branch employees who have received such a subpoena,” Warrington wrote. “We certainly did not ask for such a letter, nor did we ask for the White House’s position on Executive Privilege or the White House’s opinion on whether Lt. General Flynn should appear at the commanded deposition.”
As for Navarro—first subpoenaed by the Jan. 6 committee on Feb. 9—he was outraged at a similarly worded warning from the White House.
Unlike Flynn, however, Navarro was an employee of Trump’s during the period of time Jan. 6 investigators are seeking information. This could give him far more room than Flynn to evade scrutiny.
In a response to Su, The Washington Post reported that Navarro wrote in an email: “Mr. Biden is not the president I worked for. Donald Trump is. It is fanciful and dangerous to assert that a sitting president can revoke the Executive Privilege of his predecessor.”
He added: “See you at the Supreme Court.”
Navarro Letter From Su by Daily Kos on Scribd
President Biden has rejected previous privilege assertions from Trump over records tied to the Capitol attack and his pressure campaign to overturn the 2020 election results.
Navarro’s position Tuesday echoes that of former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and ex-Trump adviser Steve Bannon, and both men have found themselves held in contempt of Congress. Bannon was referred to the Justice Department for a criminal contempt indictment and entered a not guilty plea. His trial gets underway this summer.
Attorney General Merrick Garland has yet to act on the referral for Meadows. The House of Representatives voted to hold Meadows in contempt in December.
