(Headline USA) The Justice Department is dropping a lawsuit that it filed against White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, a case in which he was accused of using an unofficial email account for government work and wrongfully retaining presidential records during the first Trump administration, according to a Tuesday court filing.
The joint filing by the Justice Department and an attorney for Navarro doesn’t explain why they are abandoning a case that was filed in 2022, during President Joe Biden’s term in office. The one-page filing says each side will bear their own fees and costs.
The lawsuit accused Navarro of using at least one “non-official” email account — a ProtonMail account — to send and receive emails. The legal action came just weeks after Navarro was indicted on criminal charges after refusing to cooperate with a congressional investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Hill uprising. That congressional investigation has since been revealed to be mired in its own illegalities.
Navarro was convicted of two misdemeanor contempt of Congress charges in September 2023, and sentenced to four months imprisonment.
The former director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy under the Trump administration had argued that he didn’t flagrantly violate the law, but instead invoked executive privilege as his reason for not complying with the subpoena. Navarro noted that the courts are still reviewing the legal question of whether his actions were legal.
Nevertheless, an Obama-appointed federal judge ordered him to serve his sentence, and the DC appeals court upheld that order.
The civil case filed laster alleges that by using the unofficial email account, Navarro failed to turn over presidential records to the National Archives and Records Administration.
The government notified the court of the lawsuit’s dismissal a day before U.S. Magistrate G. Michael Harvey was scheduled to preside over a status conference for the case.
A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment. A lawyer for Navarro didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
Navarro served as a trade adviser during President Donald Trump’s first term. A longtime critic of trade arrangements with China, he has been named senior counselor for trade and manufacturing for Trump’s second administration.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
