January 6 Committee Makes Referral of Trump Aids To Congress for Criminal Contempt Of Congress

The House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol released a report Sunday night recommending former Trump aides Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino face contempt of Congress proceedings for failing to cooperate with its subpoenas.

On Monday, the Jan. 6 committee backs contempt charges for two former Trump aides:

The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol voted Monday night to hold two former Trump aides in criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with the committee’s subpoenas.

The committee voted unanimously to recommend the charges against former trade and manufacturing director Peter Navarro and former communications chief Daniel Scavino Jr. The House will soon vote on whether to refer Navarro and Scavino to the Justice Department for prosecution.

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), a vice chair of the committee, called Navarro and Scavino key witnesses and rejected their claims of executive privilege as the committee has moved to a “critical stage of this investigation.”

Cheney said during the hearing that the committee has questions about Scavino’s work doing social media for the former president — specifically about “his interactions with an online forum called ‘The Donald,’ and with QAnon, a bizarre and dangerous cult.”

“President Trump, working with Mr. Scavino, successfully spread distrust for our courts — which had repeatedly found no basis to overturn the election,” Cheney added.

Committee Chairman Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.) criticized Scavino for allegedly stringing along investigators for a month before declining to cooperate and noted that Navarro has stonewalled the committee while doing cable news hits, podcasts and other interviews about the related details.

“They potentially played a part in an attack on American democracy, but they can ignore our investigation because they worked for the government at the time. That’s their argument,” Thompson said. “They’re not fooling anybody. They are obligated to comply with our investigation. They have refused to do so, and that’s a crime.”

Throughout the hearing, lawmakers on the panel lobbed criticisms at the Justice Department; Attorney General Merrick Garland has yet to announce whether he will pursue a prosecution in the contempt case against former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.

More: Merrick Garland, ‘Do Your Job,’ Says Frustrated Member Of House Panel Probing Capitol Riot:

Members of the House select committee investigating last year’s riot at the U.S. Capitol expressed frustration Monday over an apparently inattentive and slow-moving Justice Department, with one lawmaker telling Attorney General Merrick Garland in a speech: “Do your job.”

Members complained of a lack of support from the Justice Department and were annoyed that criminal contempt of Congress charges have not yet been filed against former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows for failure to comply with a subpoena from the committee.

The backlog is likely to grow with the expected recommendation by the House panel to bring criminal contempt of Congress charges against Donald Trump’s former trade adviser Peters Navarro and ally Dan Scavino.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said in remarks before the committee Monday: “The Department of Justice has a duty to act [on contempt recommendations] …. Without enforcement of congressional subpoenas, there is no oversight, and without oversight, no accountability — for the former president or any other president, past, present or future.”

Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.) said flatly: “Attorney General Garland: Do your job — so we can do ours.”

The department moved quickly to criminally charge former Trump adviser Steve Bannon in November, just three weeks after the House held him in contempt for defying a committee subpoena. But the charge against Meadows has lagged [for months].

Members contrasted the DOJ’s lack of action against an alarming observation Monday in a ruling by U.S. District Judge David Carter. He said it was “more likely than not” that Trump committed federal crimes in conspiring to overthrow the results of the 2020 presidential election.

The Justice Department has not yet responded to the panel’s remarks. But Garland earlier this year vowed that the Justice Department was “committed to holding all January 6th perpetrators, at any level, accountable under law — whether they were present that day or were otherwise criminally responsible for the assault on our democracy.”

The committee subpoenaed Scavino, along with several other former Trump advisers, in September, but an attorney for Trump instructed the group not to comply with congressional investigators. Trump’s legal team tried to argue that the former aides were protected by executive and other privileges, but President Biden rejected the executive privilege claims last month.

Both Navarro and Scavino make the facetious legal argument that the incumbent president Joe Biden cannot waive the ex-president’s executive privilege. The Supreme Court has already rejected this argument. Amy Howe reported at SCOTUSblog, Court rebuffs Trump’s bid to block release of documents related to Jan. 6 riot (excerpt):

Trump went to federal court in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 18, seeking to block the disclosure of the materials. He argued that the committee is seeking records that are shielded by executive privilege and that the request lacks a valid legislative purpose. The district court denied Trump’s motion for a preliminary injunction.

Trump then went to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. In an opinion by Judge Patricia Millett, that court described the main question before it as whether “a federal court can, at the former President’s behest, override President Biden’s decision not to invoke privilege and prevent his release to Congress of documents in his possession that he deems to be needed for a critical legislative inquiry.” Trump, Millett concluded, did not provide any reason for the D.C. Circuit to “override President Biden’s judgment and the agreement and accommodations worked out between the Political Branches over these documents.”

“Both Branches agree,” Millett continued, “that there is a unique legislative need for these documents and that they are directly relevant to the Committee’s inquiry into an attack on the Legislative Branch and its constitutional role in the peaceful transfer of power.” No matter what test the court applies, Millett reasoned, “the profound interests in disclosure advanced by President Biden and the January 6th Committee far exceed” Trump’s “generalized concerns for Executive Branch confidentiality.”

Trump came to the Supreme Court in late December, asking the justices to put the D.C. Circuit’s decision on hold and block the release of the documents.

[In] a short unsigned order released on Wednesday night, the court turned down Trump’s request. The court acknowledged that the “questions whether and in what circumstances a former President may obtain a court order preventing disclosure of privileged records from his tenure in office” when the current president has decided to waive the privilege “are unprecedented and raise serious and substantial concerns.” However, the court continued, the D.C. Circuit did not decide those questions because it concluded that Trump’s documents would not be entitled to protection even if he were the current president.

Justice Thomas did not write a dissent, but he noted that he would have granted Trump’s request to block the release of the documents. This is now the center of a controversy over his failure to recuse himself from a case in which his wife had an interest in her text messages with Mark Meadows not being disclosed, in violation of 28 U.S. Code § 455.

In a report filed Sunday night, the bipartisan committee said Scavino not only worked as a White House official, “he separately promoted activities designed to advance Mr. Trump’s success as a presidential candidate. He continued to do so after the 2020 election, promoting activities designed to reverse the outcome of a lost election.”

“Mr. Scavino reportedly attended several meetings with the President in which challenges to the election were discussed,” the committee wrote in its report. “Mr. Scavino also tracked social media on behalf of President (Donald) Trump, and he did so at a time when sites reportedly frequented by Mr. Scavino suggested the possibility of violence on January 6th.”

Last month, the committee subpoenaed Navarro, who has written about and publicly discussed the effort to develop a strategy to delay or overturn certification of the 2020 election.

In its report, the committee wrote: “Rather than appear for his deposition or respond directly to the Select Committee, Mr. Navarro issued a public statement regarding his deposition. Mr. Navarro predicted that his interactions with the Select Committee would be judged by the ‘Supreme Court, where this case is headed.’ Mr. Navarro, however, never filed any case seeking relief from his responsibilities to comply with the Select Committee’s subpoena.”

Scavino and Navarro are among the latest high-profile Trump White House officials facing repercussions for refusing to comply with the Jan. 6 committee’s subpoenas. Last year, former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon was indicted on charges of contempt of Congress, which prompted warnings from some Republicans of “payback” that they could do the same to Democrats if they retake control of the House majority in November.

Meadows also refused to cooperate with the committee, leading to the House voting to hold him in contempt of Congress as well in December.

[S]eparately on Monday, a person familiar with the investigation confirmed to The Washington Post that the committee will seek an interview with Virginia Thomas, a conservative activist and the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Virginia Thomas, who goes by Ginni, has drawn scrutiny for her text messages to Meadows in which she repeatedly pressed him to work aggressively to overturn the 2020 election and keep Trump, according to copies of the messages obtained by The Washington Post and CBS News.

The messages — 29 in all — reveal an extraordinary pipeline between Thomas, a conservative activist, and Trump’s top aide during a period when Trump and his allies were vowing to go to the Supreme Court in an effort to negate the election results.

The committee’s plans to ask Thomas for an interview were first reported by CNN. A person familiar with the investigation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal committee plans confirmed the report.