Former White House trade adviser Peter Navarro pleaded not guilty on Friday to two contempt of Congress charges for refusing to comply with a subpoena from the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.
During Navarro’s arraignment Friday morning, a federal judge set a tentative trial date for Nov. 17, rejecting a defense lawyer’s request to delay it until early 2023.
John Irving, an attorney representing Navarro in the case, had asked the judge to schedule trial as late as April to allow the former Trump White House adviser to go forward with a planned book tour later this year.
But U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta said he didn’t believe the public’s interest in a speedy trial would allow for such a delay in the misdemeanor case.
An assistant U.S. attorney said during the hearing that “delaying this trial to early next year, potentially April, would be clearly unwarranted given the facts and issues in this case” and that a book tour would not be a sufficient reason to justify such a delay.
Navarro was indicted earlier this month after the House voted to hold him in contempt for refusing to comply with the Jan. 6 select committee subpoena. He had filed a civil lawsuit against House leaders the same week, challenging the panel’s authority to issue the subpoena and revealing that he had been summoned to testify before a grand jury in the Justice Department’s parallel investigation.
On Wednesday, Navarro asked that his civil suit be dismissed and Mehta noted during Friday’s hearing that those legal claims could all be raised in the context of his criminal case.
Until this week, Navarro had been without legal representation and had initially indicated that he wanted to represent himself. Irving and John P. Rowley, both former federal prosecutors, notified the court on Wednesday that they would be appearing on Navarro’s behalf.