Peter Navarro, former trade adviser to Donald Trump, arrives at a courthouse to be sentenced for contempt of Congress in January, 2024. According to reports on July 17, Navarro has been released from a Miami prison and was to speak at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via Zuma Press/TNS)
MIAMI (Tribune News Service) — Peter Navarro, a key figure in the Trump White House, was released from the Federal Correctional Institution in Miami on Wednesday — just in time to appear as a prominent speaker at the Republican National Convention.
The former Trump aide was released Wednesday from a low-security facility in southwest Miami-Dade County, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons database.
In 2023, Navarro was found guilty of contempt for refusing to cooperate with a congressional investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. As a result, Navarro began serving a four-month prison sentence in March of this year.
Navarro’s name appeared on a RNC press release detailing headliners who are planned to speak at this year’s convention. He was scheduled to speak Wednesday evening.
Who is Peter Navarro?
Navarro has been a staunch ally of President Donald Trump, joining his 2016 campaign as a trade advisor and serving in Trump’s administration as the Director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy. In the White House, Navarro was known for his protectionist trade policies and as one of the architects behind Trump’s trade war with China.
In the aftermath of Trump’s loss in the 2020 presidential election, Navarro promoted baseless claims of voter fraud, and was subpoenaed by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack. Navarro defied this subpoena and was charged with contempt of Congress.
At trial, Navarro, argued that he could not cooperate with the congressional investigation because Trump had invoked executive privilege. The court rejected Navarro’s claims and convicted him of contempt on Sept. 7.
Before beginning his prison sentence in Miami on March 19, Navarro addressed reporters and called his conviction the “partisan weaponization of the judicial system.”
After Navarro’s conviction, Trump referred to him as a “good man” and a “great patriot,” saying that Navarro had been “treated very unfairly,” according to the Associated Press.
Navarro has spent the last four months in the Federal Correctional Institution in Miami, a low security prison south of Kendall. Sam Mangel, Navarro’s prison consultant, told ABC News that Navarro had made it through his time in prison with “surprising grace and fortitude” but that he is “happy it’s over.”
Navarro is not the only former member of the Trump administration who has been sentenced to prison. Steve Bannon, another former Trump advisor, also was convicted of contempt of Congress and is currently serving a four-month prison sentence of his own.
Trump himself was recently convicted of 34 felonies in New York for falsifying business records. His sentencing has been postponed until September.
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