Former Trump administration official Peter Navarro faced another setback in court on Monday when a federal appeals court upheld a judge’s decision to hold him in contempt of court. This comes after Navarro was already serving a four-month prison sentence for contempt of Congress charges related to his failure to comply with a Jan. 6 committee subpoena. In February, a federal judge warned Navarro that he could face contempt of court charges if he did not hand over emails from his time in the Trump administration to the National Archives. The appeals court has now confirmed this ruling.
“Navarro argues that the United States cannot use D.C.’s replevin statute because the [Presidential Records Act] itself has no express cause of action for the United States to seek the return of Presidential records,” the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals court wrote Monday. “Rather, in Navarro’s view, the United States’s only enforcement mechanism is to discipline current employees possessing Presidential records under Section 2209, a mechanism the United States cannot use against Navarro because he is no longer an employee.
“These arguments are without merit under clear, longstanding precedent,” the panel continued.
Navarro’s argument “would leave the United States with no ability to retrieve Presidential records from employees if they refuse to return Presidential records after being disciplined or exiting federal employment,” the panel wrote.
Peter Navarro is serving his 4 mos sentence for contempt of Congress. But he was also facing contempt of court for failing to turn over records per the Presidential Records Act. Navarro was sanctioned by the trial court, and he appealed. Today he lost:
https://t.co/c0BzaoqMUb— Tom Ryan (@tomryanlaw) April 1, 2024
The DOJ filed a lawsuit against Navarro in August 2022 for emails stored on a personal account he utilized during his time in office, accusing him of unlawfully keeping U.S. property. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who was appointed by former President Bill Clinton, ruled in March 2023 that Navarro must surrender the emails.
“But for Dr. Navarro’s former workplace, very little about this matter would be remarkable, much less novel,” Kollar-Kotelly wrote. “Defendant agrees that he took property belonging to his former employer. He does not want to return the property.”
In the ruling upheld on Monday by the appeals court, Kollar-Kotelly stated that after examining a random selection of emails, it was evident that Navarro still retains Presidential records that have not been handed over to their rightful owner, the United States. She instructed Navarro to provide the remaining “approximately 600 records” and warned of potential contempt charges if he fails to comply.
