Peter Navarro, a former member of Donald Trump’s presidential administration who was eventually charged with contempt of Congress over refusing to comply with the House committee that investigated January 6, should get six months in prison after a conviction on those allegations, prosecutors say. Prosecutors are also asking for $200,000 in financial penalties.
The recommendations from the government for sentencing, which a judge will handle later this month, are the same that the government produced before the sentencing of longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon on a similar conviction. Bannon, who got four months, hasn’t actually served that sentence as the appeals process moves forward.
Navarro was among the figures in Trump’s circles who worked to advance his ambitions of staying in power despite the documentation of his election loss to Joe Biden. Unlike others, though, this case represents the extent of his criminal charges at this time even semi-related to that period. Mark Meadows, in contrast, who was the White House’s chief of staff and also helped Trump, has been charged in Georgia for allegedly joining a specifically criminal undertaking after the last presidential election that threatened to upend Joe Biden’s win and the votes of millions of Americans.
Also among those charged is Jeffrey Clark, yet another former official who this time served in the Justice Department. Charged alongside each other and Trump himself in a case from Georgia’s Fani Willis, so far no defendants — Meadows and Clark included — have succeeded in moving proceedings against them to federal court, which could precede a dismissal on the basis of prospective findings they were simply acting within their federal responsibilities when perpetrating disputed conduct.
Applying legal maneuvers available to “federal officers” is what would allow a transfer to federal courts at all, teeing up those potentially major victories. Charged individuals who joined as sham electors for Trump from Georgia also failed in attempting to make such a move.
