{"id":13056,"date":"2025-09-09T07:22:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T07:22:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/why-trump-trade-adviser-peter-navarro-is-sort-of-battling-the-trump-justice-department\/"},"modified":"2025-09-09T07:22:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T07:22:11","slug":"why-trump-trade-adviser-peter-navarro-is-sort-of-battling-the-trump-justice-department","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/why-trump-trade-adviser-peter-navarro-is-sort-of-battling-the-trump-justice-department\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro is (sort of) battling the Trump Justice Department"},"content":{"rendered":"<div data-testid=\"byline-container\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/author\/jordan-rubin-ncpn1301611\" tabindex=\"-1\"><picture data-testid=\"picture\" data-flavor=\"focal\" data-original-height=\"48\" data-original-width=\"48\"><source media=\"(min-width: 320px)\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com\/image\/upload\/t_focal-60x60,f_auto,q_auto:best\/newscms\/2023_04\/3591629\/jordan_rubin_1.png\" alt height=\"48\" width=\"48\"><\/source><\/picture><\/a><\/div>\n<div>\n<p id=\"anchor-eab58d\">In one of its latest reversals from the Biden era, the Justice Department said it no longer agrees with the position it took previously against <a href=\"https:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/deadline-white-house\/deadline-legal-blog\/peter-navarro-republican-national-convention-2024-rcna162498\">Peter Navarro<\/a>Donald Trump&rsquo;s White House trade adviser who&rsquo;s appealing his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/deadline-white-house\/deadline-legal-blog\/peter-navarro-guilty-verdict-contempt-congress-rcna103843\">contempt of Congress conviction<\/a>. But Navarro says the Trump DOJ&rsquo;s latest position isn&rsquo;t good enough.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-817baa\">It&rsquo;s usually opponents of the administration who demand explanations for its favorable actions toward Trump allies. It&rsquo;s usually not the allies who work for Trump and are benefiting from the actions in question. <\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-aa0ec9\">But Navarro takes issue with the fact that DOJ &mdash; despite <a href=\"https:\/\/storage.courtlistener.com\/recap\/gov.uscourts.cadc.40540\/gov.uscourts.cadc.40540.2132720.0.pdf\">reversing course<\/a> in his favor &mdash; didn&rsquo;t explain itself and that it asked a court to appoint a third party to defend his conviction on appeal. In a Sunday <a href=\"https:\/\/storage.courtlistener.com\/recap\/gov.uscourts.cadc.40540\/gov.uscourts.cadc.40540.2133806.0.pdf\">filing<\/a>Navarro&rsquo;s lawyers said the DOJ shouldn&rsquo;t be allowed to &ldquo;disavow, without explanation or acknowledgment of its reasons, the positions it has pursued in this case for more than three years.&rdquo; They said the abrupt and late reversal &ldquo;raises serious concerns about due process and the fairness expected of the agency responsible for the Executive&rsquo;s position on important constitutional issues.&rdquo; <\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-9be5b3\">The matter is pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, where oral argument was set to take place earlier this year, before the DOJ <a href=\"https:\/\/storage.courtlistener.com\/recap\/gov.uscourts.cadc.40540\/gov.uscourts.cadc.40540.1208726875.0.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">said it wanted to<\/a> &ldquo;reexamine its position on the executive-privilege issues implicated in this appeal.&rdquo; Its <a href=\"https:\/\/storage.courtlistener.com\/recap\/gov.uscourts.cadc.40540\/gov.uscourts.cadc.40540.1208771258.0.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">unexplained change of heart <\/a>followed. <\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-0f4b37\">Navarro already served a four-month sentence after the Supreme Court <a href=\"https:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/deadline-white-house\/deadline-legal-blog\/peter-navarro-prison-release-supreme-court-rcna149766\">declined<\/a> to keep him free while he pressed his appeal. He was convicted after he failed to comply with a subpoena from the House Jan. 6 committee. He said the committee demanded he violate executive privilege and betray Trump, though <a href=\"https:\/\/www.supremecourt.gov\/DocketPDF\/23\/23A843\/303277\/20240318124749008_23A843Navarrov.USA.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">a court found<\/a> that the president didn&rsquo;t assert, or authorize Navarro to assert, that privilege.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-a6ee28\">The next step is up to the appeals court. However the intra-MAGA spat is resolved there, the case could wind up back at the Supreme Court that previously refused to keep Navarro free.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-df25cd\"><strong>Subscribe to the <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/link.msnbc.com\/join\/5ck\/msnbc-deadlinelegal-signup\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Deadline: Legal Newsletter<\/strong><\/a><strong>  for expert analysis on the top legal stories of the week, including updates from the Supreme Court and developments in the Trump administration&rsquo;s legal cases.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div data-activity-map=\"expanded-byline-article-bottom\">\n<div data-testid=\"byline-thumbnail\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/author\/jordan-rubin-ncpn1301611\" tabindex=\"-1\"><picture data-testid=\"picture\" data-flavor=\"focal\" data-original-height=\"48\" data-original-width=\"48\"><source media=\"(min-width: 320px)\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com\/image\/upload\/t_focal-60x60,f_auto,q_auto:best\/newscms\/2023_04\/3591629\/jordan_rubin_1.png\" alt height=\"48\" width=\"48\"><\/source><\/picture><\/a><\/div>\n<p><span data-testid=\"byline-name\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/author\/jordan-rubin-ncpn1301611\">Jordan Rubin<\/a><\/span><span><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Jordan_S_Rubin\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span><\/span><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/mailto:jordan.rubin@nbcuni.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Jordan&nbsp;Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney&rsquo;s Office in Manhattan&nbsp;and is the author of &ldquo;Bizarro,&#8221; a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined BLN, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/deadline-white-house\/deadline-legal-blog\/trump-peter-navarro-doj-appeal-contempt-rcna229800\" class=\"button purchase\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In one of its latest reversals from the Biden era, the Justice Department said it no longer agrees with the position it took previously against Peter NavarroDonald Trump&rsquo;s White House trade adviser who&rsquo;s appealing his contempt of Congress conviction. But Navarro says the Trump DOJ&rsquo;s latest position isn&rsquo;t good enough. It&rsquo;s usually opponents of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13057,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trump"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}