(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., took to the House floor Monday to accuse Bureau of Prisons Director Colette Peters of blocking him from interviewing former Trump White House official Peter Navarro, who’s in the midst of serving a four-month prison sentence for contempt of Congress.
“Her reason is that Peter Navarro is ‘too notorious’ to be interviewed by a member of Congress!” Gaetz exclaimed.
“John Gotti was interviewed in prison. The QAnon Shaman was interviewed in prison. Director Peters HERSELF brought NBC News THROUGH PRISONS to showcase the work of corrections that’s being done! This only vindicates the claim made by Peter Navarro that he is being held as a political prisoner.”
The BOP declined to comment on Gaetz’s allegations in response to a media inquiry from this publication. BOP spokesperson Randilee Giamusso did send this publication a copy of its definition of a representative of the news media, suggesting that Gaetz’s interview was denied perhaps because he isn’t an “official” media member.
The people running Navarro’s social media released a statement about the matter.
If John Gotti could be interviewed from prison, a top former White House advisor who spent every weekend at work saving lives and jobs should be able to interviewed by a member of Congress.
"Notorious" to the feds really means truth-teller…something too dangerous for them.… https://t.co/N1uMzLJYiQ
— Peter Navarro (@RealPNavarro) May 7, 2024
Navarro’s prison sting stems from him being found guilty of two misdemeanor contempt of Congress charges last September, 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 last month for him to begin his sentence, and the DC appeals court upheld that order in a Thursday decision.
Navarro’s case, along with that of former White House adviser Steve Bannon’s, marked the first time in roughly four decades that any such cases had been prosecuted by the DOJ, despite recent examples including Lois Lerner, Eric Holder and Hillary Clinton, all of whom brazenly disregarded congressional subpoenas during the Obama administration.
Bannon was convicted of two counts and was sentenced to four months behind bars, though he has been free pending appeal.
Navarro had previously characterized the imposed punishment as a “death sentence” given his age.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
