The swift conviction of Donald Trump’s former trade adviser Peter Navarro for contempt of Congress sent two warnings to the multiple co-defendants in the ex-president’s approaching criminal trials.
The first is that nobody, not even former White House big shots claiming to be empowered by presidential authority, is above the law.
The second is that loyalty to Trump can be hazardous and often gets those who show it cross-wise with the law.
Navarro was convicted on Thursday for not complying with a subpoena from the House select committee that investigated the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. That panel doesn’t even exist anymore – it was ended by the Republican House majority that took over this year – but the verdict reinforced the principle that citizens cannot ignore congressional investigations. The symbolism of the jury’s decision will reverberate far beyond this trial, which will be remembered not for Navarro’s claims it represented a seminal constitutional battle, but for what the judge described as the “pretty weak sauce” of aspects of his defense.
It showed how the rule-breaking defiance that powers Trump’s political operation often runs into a brick wall when it comes up against the courts, where bluster and false narratives have to submit to cold hard facts.
This tradition was established in Trump’s presidency when far-reaching moves on issues like immigration were blocked by judges. It was cemented when Trump’s claims of fraud in multiple states after the 2020 election created powerful political momentum among his supporters but were abruptly thrown out of courts because they lacked standing or merit. While the Navarro case is fairly basic compared to Trump’s four criminal probes, it is a cautionary tale that poorly crafted defenses can quickly crumble in court where the standards of evidence, rather than…
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