Former Trump adviser, Dr. Peter Navarro, has reported to prison in Miami following a Supreme Court order. Navarro, convicted of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena related to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack, is attempting to appeal his conviction. However, the court refused to delay his imprisonment pending the appeal.
Navarro spoke to the press on Tuesday about his new book, The New MAGA Deal, which is available for pre-order.
Navarro faces a four-month sentence and vows to serve it proudly, citing Trump’s presidential nomination as a source of strength. His conviction marks the second among Trump aides for contempt charges.
Navarro’s refusal to comply with the subpoena, citing Trump’s executive privilege, was rejected by lower courts.
Here is a clip from the WarRoom with Steve Bannon, and a full transcript of Navarro’s historic comments:
Peter Navarro: Here’s where the homework is because of the big constitutional separation of powers. Can Congress compel a senior White House adviser, what they call the alter ego of a president, to testify before Congress?
Executive privilege goes back to George Washington and his remarks to Congress regarding the Jay Treaty. He said, very simply and clearly, succinctly, elegantly, that you write to Congress, he said, “I cannot command you, as members of Congress to come to me.
You cannot command me to come to you.” And the reason is the constitutional separation of powers. As the legal doctrines have evolved, and the Supreme Court has been very adamant about the sanctity of the privilege, that privilege has extended to what’s called alter egos of the President, which is what I am, one of his highest advisors.
The principle here, related to effective presidential decision-making, is simply that if a president does not have the ability, between and among his advisers, to get confidential information in the sanctity of the Oval Office, he will make poor decisions which will harm the Republic.
That’s what this is about. And as this case is worked through the legal process, there are a number of big issues that we will be going through on the appeal. Mr. Woodward, in the back there, will lead with Stan Brand to the finest scholars in this area.
Imaginable so the issues again, please do your research. Can Congress compel someone like me to testify? The answer has been no. Ever since George Washington said that to the Jay Treaty. What constitutes executive privilege? Is it presumptive, if not presumptive, what does a formal invocation look like in my case? I had an evidentiary hearing for the first time in history. I presented a significant amount of direct testimony and circumstantial evidence related to emails, correspondence, phone calls, and visits with the president and his top aides.
And at the end of that day, the judge made the novel choice to say privilege had not been invoked, and it was absurd. There was probably the most absurd element in this case. So the appeals court and then the Supreme Court will ponder that issue, and it’s a really important issue. A third issue has to do with the fact, and this should show you, okay, if you’re ever in my position, and you have to go to trial, it should show you to know that the judge has the discretion to strip you of any defense before you ever get to a jury.
How can that be? That can’t be the law. The way that happened in this case was through the misapplication of an antiquated, misapplied precedent of the lower court that had no bearing on anything related. It was absurd. In a related case with Stephen K. Bannon, Judge Nichols released him pending appeal with one line release because I think this may be reversed, and the thing that Nichols said, top of the list was likable.
And that’s the four-letter word in this case. The last issue is something called the rule of lenity. Again, put yourself in my shoes. The law up to the point where I was convicted said one thing, which is to say, I was doing my duty to this country, the Constitution, and my oath of office. According to the Department of Justice, according to the Supreme Court. They flipped that, the rule of law. And if they flip that, I’m not guilty, okay. Try the next person who knows that the law has been changed, but you can’t, you can’t do that. So these are the big constitutional issues that we will fight first at the appeals court and then to the Supreme Court. Now let me turn to the partisan nature of this fact. Check me on this, folks.
Fact check. Every person who has taken me on this road to that prison is a friggin Democrat and a Trump hater. Let me walk you through it. It starts with the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who forms the J-six committee blows away all the rules, improperly constituted a duly authorized and unlawful Committee. She puts on seven Democrats.
Every single one of fact check every single one of those went after Donald Trump to two impeachments and the Russia hoax. And all they want to do is stop Trump and the two Republicans on there were not Republicans at all. Liz Cheney, who hates Donald Trump because Trump told the truth about her daddy, her daddy killed people with the Iraq and Afghanistan war and everybody in this country knows that. Pelosi, the J-six committee, they subpoenaed the Congress itself when they voted my contempt charge. US strict party vote why if the house had been held by Republicans, I wouldn’t be here. The Democrats push me what and then we get the Department of Justice. Why is that a misnomer now?
The two prosecutors in the case one of them. We got a letter she wrote the bill Barr showing her Never Trump Prudential and they are the ones who during the trial during the trial, consistently insisted I was acting above the law. When they wouldn’t let me explain to the jury why I was obeying the law. I get condemned. Then it goes to the jury. Did I mention the jury? Look? I love anybody who serves on the jury.
Okay, I do not criticize the jury itself as individuals by which you as a as a Republican and a member of the Trump administration want to sit before 12 people drawn from a voter registration pool in which 95% 95% of the people voted for Joe Biden. That’s astonishing. So I get in front of that jury, the judge had already stripped me into defenses and facing that jury and by the way, the judge who stabbed me in the defense is fact check me on this before he got appointed to the bench by Barack Obama. He was what’s called a bundler.
He bundled checks to give to the campaign of candidate Obama. And coincidentally, he winds up on the bench. Democrat, Democrat, Democrat Democrat. The final issue is I go to the appeals court.
The appeals court to get simple release pending my appeal, which is the normal course and it was given immediately to see the band. No, no, no, no, they did. The judge fights me on that. But the appeals court thing about this. Mr. Woodward files that appeal. It comes into three judges. Two of them are Republican.
One is a Democrat. We’ve got your appeal. Time passes a short period of time we get this rolling back. Appeal deny three Obama judges on the three panels. Three, how did that bait and switch happen? That’s supposed to be a random draw. You know what the odds of that are listed 20% Democrat, Democrat, Democrat, from start to finish. This is the partisan weaponization of our judicial system.
Please write these big stories. Now the last thing I want to say is that that’s prison. That’s where they take your friggin. But as hard as you will be on me and as hard as you will be on anybody who is in there is harder on their families.
And this is who those Democrats have hurt. This is who the Democrats have heard. I will walk proudly in there and do my time. But what they do to people and by the way, fact check this. I will be the only person only person in that prison who’s been convicted of a misdemeanor, a misdemeanor. Everybody else is in there for felonies.
I will gather strength from this Donald Trump is the nominee for the Republican presidential campaign while I’m away for the next four months. My new book is called “The New MAGA Deal: The Guidebook to Trump’s Platform.” The unofficial guidebook to the Trump platform is being published by Don Jr.’s publishing house, Winning Strategies.
If anybody wants to get an advanced copy, if I may do a little marketing here, you can go to newmagadeal.com. That book was ready on the eve of the Republican National Convention. And it will be an important tool to show the people of America what MAGA principles are about. If you want to know anything about the 100 policies in the first 100 days of the new Trump administration to make us more prosperous and safer and secure to deal with the southern border, to deal with China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, visit newmagadeal.com.
That will be hit and I am just tired of the Democrats saying that Donald Trump and his followers and supporters are extremists. This was the man. Make no mistake about this for four years. Four years. peace, prosperity, sick security, price stability. What do we have now? Inflation and how to control southern border war clouds growing the Taiwan Strait in Gaza. In Ukraine. That’s Joe Biden. New MAGA deals are jam. I’m gonna stop there.
I’ll take a few questions. And then I lead my journey across the street. I will start with you ma’am.
My mission, my mission is to defend the Constitution separation of powers and executive privilege.
And I knew from day one, getting that subpoena based on my experiences in the White House from reading the Office of Legal Counsel memos at the Department of Justice, that absolute testimonial immunity was in place. Again, Dearborn, Conway Porter, I can give you a whole long string of senior White House advisers who did exactly what I did and were never prosecuted. And if I had gone to Congress and played the piecemeal game with them, I would have done damage to the separation of powers and I would not have been doing my duty.
I would not have been obeying my oath of office. Next question. Are you nervous? I’m not nervous. I am not talking about I’m going to claim executive presence on the Donald Trump conversations. I’ve had the greatest amount of support for Donald Trump and his team. And he, I think, put me in prison. They can put you in prison.
Make no mistake, and make no mistake about this. They are coming after Donald Trump with the same tactics, tools, and strategies they use to put me over there today. Okay, think about this stripped of all defenses before a jury trial, that’s going to happen to him. Democrats in all the jurisdictions he’s in family Willis in Atlanta. The guy in Manhattan, Bragg, then of course Jack Smith at the Department of injustice as we like to call it on my side of the fence. So I’m pissed. That’s what I’m feeling right now.
But I’m also afraid of only one thing I’m afraid for this country because this what they’re doing should have a chilling effect on every American regardless of their party. They come for me, they can come for you. What else? Yeah, take tomorrow. Yes. Yes. Bouquet though. No, you can now I can’t speak to the camera though. Yeah.
J-six committee did not investigate, in my judgment, the most important aspects of how that Riot occurred. I wrote in my book in Trump time, the chapter about J-six that the last three people on God’s good earth who wanted violence that day on Capitol Hill were Stephen K. Bannon, President Trump himself, and me and the reason is that the fact that that violence occurred deprives this country of having review under the perfectly legal making 87 electoral Count Act of the votes, okay.
What I think needs to happen and out the Republicans. Are you listening to our map or he listens, folks up there, Jim Jordan, my brothers, who I used to ride with on Air Force One, you need to remember that J-six committee had some unfinished business. There were more FBI informants up on Capitol Hill that day, possibly instigated in that crowd than the FBI itself. could keep track of there were stories about that. Why did Nancy Pelosi not provide more capital in a police?
Why did Mark Esper the secretary offensive the National Guard so far away? And as for the destruction of evidence or look the things they are doing? You know, Hillary Clinton, cleansing or II, eBay, there’s so many things these Democrats have done that would actually justify prison you juxtapose that with me? All I’ve done is my duty. All I have done is my duty to this country. The Constitution, my commander in chief to my old block, it’s only one more part in either for President. This is going to the Supreme Court, my mission, my mission in this and I will have served my time by the time that mission is completed.
To see get this in front of the Supreme Court. And I hope that they will put politics aside and look at this is what they call a case is important. This is what to call the case of first impressions. Okay. There are so many novel legal issues in this case that require the settlement again, another legal term of good law on the subject settling good law. It’s it’s crying out for the Supreme Court to do this, but the tragedy here is because I have not been released, pending appeal. I will have all my time before that place of living in Joe Biden’s America right now. God bless you all. I’ll see you on the other side.