Former Trump White House aide Peter Navarro told federal agents to “get the f–k out of here” when they tried to serve him with a subpoena days before his arrest on contempt of Congress charges for refusing to appear before the House panel investigating last year’s Capitol riot, the Justice Department claimed in court documents.
In its Monday filing, the DOJ sought to refute Navarro’s claim that it had failed to provide him with needed discovery materials and said the former White House trade adviser misrepresented “the facts and his posture toward the government at the time of his arrest.”
Prosecutors said that “contrary” to Navarro’s statements, “it is not law enforcement’s normal practice to ask combative, unrepresented subjects to self-surrender.”
According to the documents, agents went to Navarro’s home days before he was indicted by a federal grand jury.
“When the case agents attempted to interview him and serve him with a subpoena at his residence, the Defendant at first refused to open the door and then, when he did, told the agents to ‘get the f*** out of here,'” the court papers say.
Federal agents stopped Navarro “in a discreet location” and removed him to be booked “all out of sight of the public” in order to avoid a media circus, according to the feds. REUTERSNavarro was indicted June 2 and arrested the following day at Reagan National Airport in northern Virginia as he attempted to board a flight to Nashville.
To avoid a “media circus,” the agents stopped Navarro “in a discreet location at the jet-bridge at the airport” and removed him to be booked “all out of sight of the public,” the DOJ said.
Following his initial court appearance, Navarro, a Trump loyalist, told reporters that agents had “put me in leg irons” and made a point of keeping him a cell that once held John Hinckley Jr., the attempted assassin of former President Ronald Reagan.
“They seemed to think that that was like an important historical note,” Navarro said at the time. “That’s punitive. What they did to me today violated the Constitution.”
In Monday’s filing, the Justice Department said leg irons are a standard procedure followed by US Marshals “for all arrestees – whether they surrender or not.”
Navarro refused to appear before the House panel investigating last year’s Capitol riot. James Keivom
Republican Liz Cheney is the vice chair of the select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. APNavarro has pleaded not guilty to the charges and is scheduled to go to trial in November.
Another Trump adviser, Steve Bannon, was found guilty last month by a federal jury of two counts of contempt of Congress.
Bannon also refused to comply with a subpoena from the House select committee investigating the events of Jan. 6, 2021.
He is scheduled to be sentenced in October.
