A former top trade advisor to President Trump, Peter Navarro, 74, has been sentenced to four months in federal prison and ordered to pay a $9,500 fine after being convicted of misdemeanor contempt of Congress. He — along with another senior advisor to the former president, Steve Bannon — refused to comply with subpoenas from the Select January 6 Committee.

“I haven’t heard a single word of contrition since this case began,” the presiding judge, Amit Mehta, an Obama appointee, said. He also told Mr. Navarro that “you are not a victim.” 

Judge Carl Nichols, who was appointed to the bench by Mr. Trump, sentenced Mr. Bannon to four months last year as well as a $6,500 fine, though Mr. Bannon is now appealing that sentence. 

Mr. Navarro, who has said he will appeal his conviction, has complained he is a victim of selective prosecution for lawfully resisting a subpoena from a fiercely partisan congressional committee. After being convicted in 2023, Mr. Navarro told reporters that he believed that he did not have to comply with a congressional subpoena because executive privilege had been invoked.

Other Trump White House advisors, including a chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and a senior aide, Dan Scavino, were also held in contempt of Congress for not complying with subpoenas from the January 6 committee, but were ultimately not prosecuted by the Department of Justice. It’s unclear why Messrs. Navarro and Bannon, who were both vocal proponents of the claim that the 2020 election was stolen, were singled out for prosecution.

“This is a landmark case that is bound for the Supreme Court,” Mr. Navarro said. “This is the first time in the history of our republic that a senior White House advisor — the alter ego of the president — has ever been charged” with not complying with a congressional subpoena, he argued. 

The DOJ “had a policy for more than 50 years that said that people like me — senior White House advisors, alter egos of the president — cannot be compelled to testify before Congress … yet they brought the case,” he said. “It’s about the constitutional separation of powers.”

Mr. Navarro argued in a pretrial motion in 2023 that Mr. Trump had told him to assert executive privilege. Judge Mehta said there was no evidence the former president had made such statements. Mr. Trump then refused to testify at Mr. Navarro’s trial. 

Also at risk of being held in contempt of Congress for defying a committee subpoena is the incumbent president’s son, Hunter Biden. Mr. Biden for months refused to comply with a subpoena issued to him by the House Oversight and Judiciary committees, saying he would give public testimony rather than a closed-door deposition, as required by the subpoena.

After the Oversight Committee formally moved to hold Mr. Biden fils in contempt, he folded and agreed to give a closed-door deposition to impeachment investigators on February 28. The chairman of the Oversight Committee, Congressman James Comer, previously told the Sun that should Mr. Biden fail to appear by the end of February, he would be held in contempt of Congress by the House.