Mr Navarro was arrested and charged with criminal contempt of Congress in June of this year. The charge relates to his refusal to cooperate with the select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol riot and the events leading up to it. Mr. Navarro has publicly described how he was instrumental in crafting the failed plan to effectively overturn Mike Pence’s election of Joe Biden to Congress. Having pleaded not guilty, Mr. Navarro is now trying to force the government to give him more evidence through discovery, arguing that he is withholding information to which he is entitled. However, in a filing in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, the Justice Department disputes his claim in the starkest terms. “While the volume of discovery may be small, its volume does not reflect its completeness,” the document states. “Rather, it reflects the simple nature of this case — the defendant received a subpoena, ignored the subpoena’s document requirement, and refused to appear for a deposition despite being advised to do so.” In addition to denying Mr. Navarro’s discovery request on its merits, the department is also giving a bleak account of the events leading up to his arrest, which it has repeatedly described in the right-wing media as unfair, excessive and deliberately humiliating — a description what the department calls his “misrepresentation of facts and his attitude toward the government at the time of his arrest.” According to the filing, while Mr. Navarro claims he was wrongfully barred from turning himself in to authorities instead of being arrested, law enforcement typically does not offer that option to “combatant” defendants who do not yet have legal representatives. “And just days before,” the document says, “when case agents attempted to interview him and serve a subpoena at his residence, the defendant initially refused to answer the door and then, when he did, told the agents to “get the f*** out of here”. (At this point a pointed footnote appears: “This interaction was recorded and discovered to the defendant on June 14, 2022. The government may provide it to the Court if necessary.”) The department goes on to say that since Mr. Navarro “has an extensive history of seeking news coverage,” it chose to arrest him out of sight at an airport in order to “avoid a media circus.” His claims that he was treated unusually badly, the government group says, are “without merit”. Mr. Navarro, who will release a book next month called “Taking Back Trump’s America: Why We Lost the White House and How We’ll Win It Back,” has not yet responded to the filing. He is one of several key members of the Trump team who have refused to fully cooperate with subpoenas from the January 6 select committee, including former chief of staff Mark Meadows and far-right agitator Steve Bannon. Mr Bannon was found guilty at trial last month.
