The ex-trade adviser to former President Donald Trump spent his last moments before reporting to federal prison railing against Democrats and the justice system, claiming they conspired to lock him up for refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena.
In a meandering 20-minute press conference at a strip mall parking lot a block away from the prison, Navarro — who repeatedly urged reporters to “fact-check me” — argued that his refusal to cooperate with congressional investigators investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol was really a high-minded effort to protect the separation of powers. But the courts disagreed, and Navarro is now the first former White House official in history to go to prison after being convicted of contempt of Congress. He’s also the first member of Trump’s circle of White House advisers to go to jail for crimes stemming from Trump’s effort to subvert the 2020 election. Navarro on Tuesday continued to maintain that his decision to invoke executive privilege — even when members of the House committee told him they’d address matters not related to his conversations with Trump — was proper. The Justice Department prosecuted him and he was convicted by a Washington, D.C., jury of two misdemeanor counts of contempt of Congress and sentenced to four months in a federal prison in Miami. “I’m pissed. That’s what I’m feeling right now,” Navarro said, standing in a parking lot across from a Papa John’s and a pawn sho