Former Trump adviser Peter Navarro claims he’s been subpoenaed by grand jury
(CNN)Former Trump White House adviser Peter Navarro revealed Monday that he has been subpoenaed by federal prosecutors.
Navarro said he has been summoned to testify on Thursday to a federal grand jury and to provide any records he has related to his refusal to comply with a February subpoena he received from the House select committee investigating the attack on the US Capitol, including any communication with former President Donald Trump.
The New York Times was first to report that Navarro, Trump’s onetime trade adviser, said he’d been subpoenaed by federal prosecutors.
In April, the House voted to recommend Navarro be referred to the Department of Justice on criminal contempt of Congress charges for refusing to comply with its subpoena.
The grand jury subpoena was revealed in a draft copy of a lawsuit obtained by CNN that Navarro says he intends to file against the House select committee, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the US attorney for the District of Columbia.
Navarro is representing himself in the suit, which has not yet been filed in court, and is seeking to convince a federal judge to block both the House committee’s subpoena and the grand jury’s subpoena, which he says are unlawful.
Navarro said in the draft lawsuit that the grand jury subpoena was served on Thursday when two FBI special agents “banged loudly on my door in the early morning hours.”
CNN has asked Navarro to see a copy of the grand jury subpoena. CNN has also reached out to the US Attorney’s Office in DC for comment.
Navarro has been public about his attempts to work with the Trump campaign to subvert the 2020 presidential election.
In a recent book, the former White House trade adviser details a plan called the “Green Bay Sweep,” which involved convincing state leaders in several swing states to call election results into question in an attempt to delay and eventually prevent the election’s certification.
Navarro maintains in the book that he was among the “last three people on God’s green earth who wanted to see violence erupt” on January 6, 2021 — counting himself among the likes of Trump and Trump ally and adviser Steve Bannon.
In an appearance on Bannon’s podcast earlier this year, Navarro appeared to criticize former Vice President Mike Pence for saying Trump had been wrong to claim Pence had the authority to overturn the 2020 election. Navarro blasted Pence as “never a pure Trump guy” and “the prisoner of Marc Short,” a longtime Pence confidant and the former vice president’s chief of staff, who has appeared before the House select committee.
This story has been updated with additional information Monday.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/30/politics/peter-navarro-grand-jury-subpoena/index.html
