Former White House trade adviser Peter Navarro is fighting the Jan. 6 Select Committee in court and told Newsmax on Thursday that he might even risk going to jail for a year to protect presidential privilege and the Constitution's separation of powers.
"You know, I could go to prison, right? — they want to put me in prison for a year — I think principle is more important here, and there's a number of constitutional issues at stake," Navarro said on "Stinchfield."
"I think the biggest one that the Supreme Court has to take on and that's the purpose of my lawsuit: It's this idea that an incumbent president in Joe Biden can somehow strip Donald Trump of his right to executive privilege and me as a senior White House official to my testimony immunity.
"Why does that matter?" Navarro continued to host Grant Stinchfield. "Ask George Washington, ask Thomas Jefferson — Grant, going back then they recognize executive privilege was critical to get candor from decisions and have effective presidential decision-making."
Navarro also denounced House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's nine-member committee for what he called weaponizing "Congress' investigatory powers."
"The other constitutional issue here is separation of powers," Navarro added. "I don't know if your viewers know this, but Congress has no constitutional authority to investigate as if they were judge, jury and executioner. The only thing they can do is investigate in a non-punitive way to change laws and regulations for the betterment of the republic.
"That's not what Pelosi and her kangaroo committee are doing. They prejudged this case on issues in all sorts of ways."
Navarro said the Jan. 6 committee, an attack on Trump, is moving forward because multiple attempts by Democrats to derail Trump as a president and future presidential candidate have failed.
"This is going on for five years," he said. "You mentioned that where it started: As soon as Trump got elected, it began with this discredited Russia hoax, it went through two discredited impeachment trials, and it went through three House resolutions that tried to remove Trump from office.
"And you know what the common thread in that is? It's the seven members of the Democrats who were on that kangaroo committee set up by Pelosi. By the way, the only two Republicans were put there, not by [House GOP leader] Kevin McCarthy, as the law requires, but rather by Pelosi, and guess what?
''They're the RINOs [Republican in Name Only Reps. Liz] Cheney and [Adam] Kinzinger, both with axes to grind with President Trump."
Navarro vowed to stand against the House Democrats' abuse of power.
"This is about a bigger thing than me or this committee," he concluded. "That show trial that's going to happen next week, everybody needs to know, that's a weaponization of Congress — bad for the republic.
"I'm standing up for principle here. We need Trump back in the White House."
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Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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