WASHINGTON – The United States Department of Justice filed a lawsuit Wednesday against former President Donald Trump’s (2017-2021) trade adviser Peter Navarro for refusing to provide official emails sent when he was in office.
According to the complaint filed with the Washington courts, Navarro violated a law that requires White House employees to preserve official documents and deliver them to the National Archives when the president’s term ends.
Furthermore, Navarro would have sent these emails from an unofficial account created with the private service ProtonMail instead of using the account specifically designed for his official activity.
On June 3, Navarro was criminally charged with two counts of contempt of Congress for having refused to collaborate with the committee investigating the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Navarro, 72, appeared on that day before the federal court of the District of Columbia, where the charges against him were formalized.
He is accused of two crimes of contempt of Congress: the first for refusing to respond to a request to testify before the committee of the Lower House that investigates the assault on the Capitol and another for not delivering to that entity some documents that he had requested, detailed the Justice Department in a statement.
Committee of January 6 blames the former president for doing nothing to stop the attack on the capitol
Each contempt of Congress charge Navarro is charged with carries a minimum sentence of 30 days and a maximum of one year in jail, as well as a fine that could be up to $100,000.
Navarro has refused to collaborate with the committee investigating the assault on Capitol Hill, arguing that Trump invoked the doctrine of “executive privilege,” which means certain information cannot be released without his permission.
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