Former Trump White House official Peter Navarro, who was indicted in June on contempt charges after he defied the Jan. 6 committee's subpoena, said Monday he would respect his attorneys' wishes and not comment about Steve Bannon's willingness to testify.
Navarro lamented on Newsmax he is facing prison "for doing my duty to the Constitution" by refusing to speak.
"I'm facing up to two years in prison," Navarro told Monday's "John Bachman Now." "I'm over $400,000 in legal costs. I've had some help from some big donors, and I've had some help from some small donors."
Navarro also note executive privilege is not his. It is former President Donald Trump's. Trump did waive executive privilege to clear Bannon to testify.
"The second least burdensome alternative would have been a civil suit, so that's what they did … so I'm stuck here where my duty and honor says I can't waive the privilege," said Navarro. "What I need to do is respect the law, the Constitution, and my former commander-in-chief. And instead, they're coming at me trying to break me and I'm not breaking.
"I'm standing here in front of you telling you that this is a really important constitutional issue and in the best-case scenario, I avoid prison. We settle, settle some law on this and make sure that they can't do this again."
But the committee is "weaponizing the investigatory powers of Congress in an illegal unconstitutional way, which creates a dual system of justice and the people in this country," he added.
"The essence of this issue is that presidents dating back to George Washington have something called executive privilege and advisers such as myself have what's called testimonial immunity, and the concept is a good one that everybody in this country should support, which is to say that a president can't have candid conversations and get good advice from his advisers if he's always worried about people poking around on those deliberations."
Navarro, while urging viewers to visit his defense funding page, insisted that his argument isn't about him or even about former President Donald Trump, but that he's "standing up for these constitutional issues about the separation of powers … and most of all about the sanctity of executive privilege to ensure effective decision making in the Oval Office."
Navarro has written a book, "Taking Back Trump's America" and told Newsmax that the book is a "battle plan to get rid of" House Speaker Nancy Pelosi "and her kangaroo courts and all of that in 2022."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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