(WASHINGTON) — The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday subpoenaed Trump White House official Peter Navarro for records and testimony.
Navarro, who served as President Donald Trump’s trade adviser, supported the former president’s unfounded claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump through widespread voter fraud.
In addition to producing multiple reports of unproven voter fraud claims for Trump, Navarro, in his memoir, claimed to have come up with a plan with Trump ally Steve Bannon to contest the election results by delaying the Jan. 6 certification of the Electoral College vote in order to keep Trump in office.
“Mr. Navarro appears to have information directly relevant to the Select Committee’s investigation into the causes of the January 6th attack on the Capitol,” said committee chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss. “He hasn’t been shy about his role in efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election and has even discussed the former President’s support for those plans.”
“President Trump has invoked Executive Privilege; and it is not my privilege to waive,” Navarro said in a statement to ABC News regarding the subpoena. “They should negotiate any waiver of the privilege with the president and his attorneys directly, not through me.”
Under Navarro’s plan, dubbed the “Green Bay Sweep,” former Vice President Mike Pence was to send disputed election results back to the states, thereby forcing hours of debate on Capitol Hill.
“It was a perfect plan,” Navarro said in an interview late last year with the Daily Beast. “And it all predicated on peace and calm on Capitol Hill. We didn’t even need any protesters, because we had over 100 congressmen committed to it.”
But rioters disrupted the official count, and when the proceedings resumed, Pence certified the vote count over the objections of Trump and his allies who claimed he could have challenged the results.
“The last three people on God’s good earth who wanted chaos and violence on Capitol Hill were President Trump, Steve Bannon, and I,” Navarro said Wednesday.
“More than 500 witnesses have provided information in our investigation, and we expect Mr. Navarro to do so as well,” said Thompson.
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