The House select committee investigating last year’s U.S. Capitol riot demanded in a statement Friday that former White House trade adviser Peter Navarro testify about Donald Trump’s “participation” in a plot to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
The committee also revealed on Twitter a copy of a text to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows from an unidentified sender offering “details on the call that Navarro helped convene” to block certification of the election results — “including that the president participated.”
The committee on Monday recommended that the House refer criminal contempt of Congress charges for Navarro and Trump ally Dan Scavino to the Justice Department for ignoring the committee’s subpoenas to testify before the panel.
Navarro has boasted in his book and on national TV a number of times about the plot to deny certification of the legitimate Electoral College votes in an effort to keep Trump in the White House. He refers to the plot to upend voters’ choice in football terms, calling it the “Green Bay [Packers] Sweep.” Yet he claims executive privilege when it comes to discussing details of that information before the House committee.
Navarro was supposed to be interviewed Tuesday on MSNBC but pulled out at the last minute, host Ari Melber reported.
The text to Meadows cited by the Jan. 6 committee refers to calls to “legislators.” Trump is known to have participated in a call with “hundreds” of GOP state legislators, along with Navarro, “coup memo” attorney John Eastman and others, to try to persuade them to “decertify” their states’ electoral votes for Joe Biden following the election, according to the committee.
Another call, which was recorded, was made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, whom Trump told to “find” enough votes — nearly two months after his presidential election loss — to make Trump the winner in the state instead of Biden.
Judge David Carter of the U.S. District Court in Central California ruled Monday that such actions made it “more likely than not” that Trump criminally conspired to “overturn a democratic election.”
If the plan “had worked, it would have permanently ended the peaceful transition of power, undermining American democracy and the Constitution,” Carter wrote.