A federal appeals court unanimously rejected Peter Navarro's bid to overturn his contempt of Congress conviction Tuesday, ruling the Trump adviser's executive privilege claim was a cover — a decision that chips away at a constitutional protection every American president has relied on and reinforces a justice system that punishes one side while the other walks.
The stakes are straightforward: if executive privilege requires a paper directive from the president to hold up in court, then any adviser who takes a president at his word — not on letterhead — can be hauled off to prison. The DC Circuit's ruling effectively sets that trap.
All three judges on the panel — Patricia Millett, Nina Pillard, and Michelle Childs — were appointed by Democratic presidents. They found that Navarro "first asserted executive privilege unilaterally without consulting with or receiving direction from President Trump."
According to the opinion authored by Millett, Navarro had no documentation proving Trump told him in a three-minute phone call to defy the House Select Committee's subpoena. A Trump attorney and a Trump adviser who testified to a grand jury against Navarro both said the former president never formally decided Navarro should be shielded.
The court also noted Navarro asserted privilege "before even seeing the subpoena and its cover letter" and that some information sought had already been discussed publicly in Navarro's book and media interviews. "That all cuts against Dr. Navarro's purported good-faith defense, not in favor of it," Millett wrote.
Cable News Network reported that the ruling leaned heavily into what the court called Navarro's failure to prove Trump wanted him shielded. The opinion emphasized that both branches of government — Congress and the executive branch under Biden — pursued accountability. "As it turns out, the Political Branches are entirely in accord this time," Millett wrote.
Navarro, now serving as a White House trade adviser, and Steve Bannon both served federal prison time in 2024 for defying House subpoenas related to January 6. Both were private citizens when Congress came calling. Despite Trump's widespread clemency for January 6 defendants, neither has received a presidential pardon. The Justice Department under Trump has told courts this year it wanted the charges to continue, according to Cable News Network.
The court's logic raises an uncomfortable question: if a presidential adviser can't rely on a verbal directive from the commander in chief to invoke privilege, what exactly is executive privilege worth? And why does one party's officials face prison for defying congressional subpoenas while the other party's officials face no consequences at all for the same conduct?
The answer, as always, depends on who's doing the prosecuting — and who's doing the judging.
