The Supreme Court on Monday for a second time shot down a request from former Trump adviser Peter Navarro to avoid further prison time over his contempt of Congress conviction.
In an emergency request last month, Navarro asked the Supreme Court to let him remain free while he challenged his conviction at the federal appeals court in Washington, DC. Chief Justice John Roberts denied that request on March 18, and Navarro reported to prison the following day.
Attempting a procedural maneuver that has not worked in decades, Navarro then resubmitted the request to Justice Neil Gorsuch, Trump’s first high-court nominee. Supreme Court rules allow parties whose emergency applications are denied by a single justice to resubmit to another justice.
Gorsuch referred the request to the full court, which considered it during its closed door conference on Friday. The court denied the request on Monday without comment.
Navarro’s attorneys initially argued that pausing a lower court’s ruling rejecting his bid to stay out of prison was warranted because he wasn’t a flight risk and was raising substantial legal questions. Navarro argued his appealed would “raise a number of issues on appeal that he contends are likely to result in the reversal of his conviction, or a new trial.”
Two lower courts turned down similar appeals.
Roberts rejected the request with a brief opinion last month. The chief justice said that the federal appeals courts concluded Navarro had forfeited any challenge to the idea that, even if he was entitled to executive privilege, he could avoid appearing before Congress. And Roberts said he saw “no basis to disagree with the determination that Navarro forfeited those arguments.”
Navarro was sentenced to four months in prison after a jury found him guilty of failing to respond to congressional subpoenas for documents and testimony in the House’s investigation of the January 6, 2021, US Capitol attack.
Navarro’s underlying case is still pending before the appeals court.
