Olympic gold medal squinter Dr. Peter Navarro is perhaps best known as the Trump adviser ex-White House psychopath-whisperer Jared Kushner found on Amazon while browsing adult-size Little Lord Fauntleroy outfits. He’s nearly as well known for trying to overthrow the legitimate government of the United States in order to preserve a future MAGA utopia that recognizes every American’s limitless potential to sit through still more infrastructure weeks.
And now he’s gotten himself into some hot water, and not just because he fell in the tub again while power-loofahing Donald Trump’s unnervingly unctuous loins. Seems that Navarro, a top Trump-era trade adviser and black belt lackey, sent government-related emails from a private email account. As we’ve been told numerous times, using private email while working in the White House is the worst thing anyone can do, short of wearing a tan suit to the office. To add insult to perfidy, Navarro refused to give the emails up.
But now the long arm of the law is rifling through his drawers and finally forcing a reckoning.
RELATED STORY: More legal problems for ex-Trump adviser after Justice Department sues for access to his emails
NBC News:
A federal judge on Thursday ordered former Donald Trump aide Peter Navarro to hand the National Archives 200 to 250 emails that he sent during his time in the Trump administration using a private email account instead of his White House email.
In August 2022, the Department of Justice filed a civil lawsuit against Navarro to compel him to hand over the emails after he refused to do so without first being granted immunity. Lawyers for Navarro alleged the Justice Department was using the Presidential Records Act, which requires that official White House records be preserved, as a way to gather evidence against him in his ongoing criminal contempt of Congress case. They argued that forcing Navarro to produce the emails could violate his 5th amendment right against self-incrimination.
That’s a good one. “Sorry, I can’t return the mini fridge I stole from the office break room after you fired me because that’s where I keep my panda steaks and heroin. Try again, witch-hunters.”
Recall that in June 2022, Navarro was charged with contempt of Congress for refusing to cooperate with the House Jan. 6 committee. The committee had hoped to interview Navarro after he shrewdly concealed his plot to subvert the will of the electorate in interviews and in his memoir, In Trump Time: My Journal of America’s Plague—which is a weirdly on-the-nose title when you think about it.
RELATED STORY: Navarro indicted on two counts of contempt of Congress
But while Navarro hoped to hide the records indefinitely, the judge in this case wasn’t having it, NBC News reports.
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly wrote in Thursday’s ruling that Navarro was asked "to return to the United States emails from his personal email account that constitute presidential records and which were in all instances prepared during his tenure at the White House from 2017 to 2021. Producing these pre-existing records in no way implicates a compelled testimonial communication that is incriminating.”
In other words, these aren’t your emails, Pete. Go cry to Steve Bannon.
Read Kollar-Kotelly’s full opinion here. As Politico notes, it’s pretty “brutal.”
Peter Navarro, seen here facepalming his way into the history books.
In her decision, Kollar-Kotelly wrote that the Presidential Records Act “makes plain that presidential advisors such as Dr. Navarro are part and parcel of the statutory scheme in that they are required to preserve presidential records during their tenure so that they can be transferred to [the National Archives] at the end of an administration.”
In 2021, the National Archives discovered that Navarro had used a personal account on an encrypted email service to send official government emails, according to a Justice Department lawsuit seeking the materials. But in an apparent violation of the Presidential Records Act, Navarro hadn’t copied his official White House account or forwarded his email exchanges to it.
Meanwhile, Navarro may have good reason to hide these “200 to 250” emails. He still hasn’t stood trial for contempt of Congress—though that day is coming—and according to no less an authority than Navarro, those secret government emails he has could be incriminating!
RELATED STORY: Peter Navarro gives the weakest reason ever for wanting to delay his contempt of Congress trial
Looks like he may need to lawyer up some more. Maybe he can find a new powerhouse legal team on Craigslist. It’s worth a shot, right?
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