The House select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol unanimously voted Monday night to recommend that former Trump aides Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino be held in contempt of Congress for failing to cooperate with subpoenas.
Committee chair Bennie Thompson acknowledged in a statement on Monday that Navarro, a former trade adviser, and Scavino, a former deputy chief of staff and member of the White House communications team, “aren’t household names,” but he said they are “so important to our investigation.”
“In short: these two men played key roles in the ex-President’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election,” Thompson said. “The Select Committee subpoenaed them for records and testimony to learn more about their roles and what they knew.”
Thompson said that Scavino “strung us along for months before making it clear that he believes he’s above the law.” Navarro, Thompson said, shared “relevant details on TV and podcasts in his own book,” but he “stonewalled us.”
In a statement Monday night, Navarro said the select committee’s “witch hunt is predicated on the ridiculous legal premise that Joe Biden can waive Donald Trump’s Executive Privilege. The Supreme Court will say otherwise when the time comes – as it surely must – and the DOJ knows such nonsense would gut Executive Privilege and the critical role it plays in effective presidential decision making.”
Vice chair Liz Cheney, one of the two Republicans on the committee, said Monday that the committee has “already defeated President Trump’s effort to hide certain White House records behind a shield of Executive Privilege,” and “that same conclusion should apply to Mr. Scavino and Mr. Navarro.”
“In the coming months, our committee will convene a series of hearings,” Cheney said. “The American people will hear from our fellow citizens who demonstrated fidelity to our constitution and the rule of law – who refused to bow to President Trump’s pressure.”
Speaking after the vote, committee member Jamie Raskin said to “please spare us the nonsense talk about executive privilege rejected now by every court that has looked at it. This is America, and there’s no executive privilege here for presidents, much less trade advisors, to plot coups and organize insurrections against the people’s government and the people’s constitution, and then to cover up the evidence of their crimes. The courts aren’t buying it and neither are we. “
Monday’s vote comes after the committee released a 34-page report recommending the contempt charges on Sunday night.
“The contempt report published last night gets into the weeds on this, but broadly, Mr. Scavino and Mr. Navarro are making similar excuse,” Thompson said. “They’re claiming that the information we want from them is shielded by executive privilege.”
The committee referred the matter to the full Democratic-controlled House, which will decide to schedule a vote on whether to turn the matter over to the Justice Department.
Navarro, along with other Trump allies who have been subpoenaed, have said they cannot overrule Trump invoking executive privilege. President Biden, meanwhile, has rejected the claims of executive privilege.
“My position remains this is not my executive privilege to waive, and the committee should negotiate this matter with President Trump,” Navarro said in a statement. “If he waives the privilege, I will be happy to comply; but I see no effort by the committee to clarify this matter with President Trump, which is bad faith and bad law.”
Scavino, who the committee noted had dual roles as a White House official and a key promoter of Trump’s stolen election theory on social media, was first subpoenaed in September to provide documents to the…
Read More: House January 6 committee refers contempt charges for Navarro and Scavino