Federal judge orders Peter Navarro to turn over hundreds of White House emails

A federal judge on Thursday ordered Peter Navarro, former President Trump’s trade advisor, to turn over hundreds of emails from a personal encrypted account that he used while working in the White House.

The Justice Department sued Navarro for the emails from his Proton Mail account in August, after he refused to turn them over without a “grant of immunity.” 

The former Trump advisor was required to turn over any records generated or received while working in his official capacity for the president under the Presidential Records Act (PRA). This explicitly includes records sent or received on an unofficial account.

Navarro’s attorneys identified between 200-250 emails that would qualify as presidential records in response to a request by the Department of Justice, but he refused to turn them over.

In Thursday’s opinion, District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly rejected each of Navarro’s arguments as to why he felt he didn’t need to turn over the emails from his personal account.

Navarro claimed, among other things, that the PRA does not impose an obligation on him to turn over presidential records, cannot be enforced because there is no explicit mechanism, and is “’vague’ and unsettled,” all of which the judge rejected.

“These arguments ignore or contravene the statute’s purpose, framework and provisions,” Kollar-Kotelly noted in her opinion.