Peter Navarro, who is facing a charge of contempt of Congress, will not be able to argue that former President Donald Trump asserted executive privilege to prevent him from testifying in front of a House committee investigating the events of Jan. 6, 2021, a federal judge ruled.
U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta ruled against Navarro, a former adviser in the Trump White House, during an evidentiary hearing Monday in Washington, D.C., CNN reported. Navarro, who has pleaded not guilty to charges of refusing to provide testimony and refusing to provide documents, is set to go on trial Tuesday.
In a hearing Wednesday, Mehta said there was no evidence that Trump had formally invoked the privilege to shield Navarro from testifying in front of Congress, CBS News reported. The judge ruled Navarro can't use his contention that Trump asserted privilege as a defense at trial.
Navarro, speaking to reporters after Wednesday's hearing, said Mehta's ruling concerned "very complex and important constitutional issues related to the separation of powers between the legislative branch and the executive branch."
He said it's possible Mehta's ruling will be appealed.
"These are questions that will certainly move up the chains — the appellate level. And as I said at the beginning, this is probably going to the Supreme Court because this is so important," Navarro said, according to CNN. "You can't have a Congress, a partisan Congress, that abuses the subpoena process for the purpose of punishing the party that's out of power."
Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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