Judging Freedom - House Votes to Hold Dan Scavino, Peter Navarro in Contempt of Congress

Episode Date: April 7, 2022

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Good morning, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Thursday, April 7th, 2022. It's about 9.30 in the morning on the east coast of the United States. A reminder, next Tuesday, April 12th at 12.45 in the afternoon, right here on Judging Freedom, Ron Paul, Mr. Libertarian, Dr. Libertarian, the standard against whom other libertarian thinkers and lovers of freedom are mentioned. You all know his background. He's my longtime friend and personal hero, and he'll be here for a long-form 20 to 30-minute interview, 1245 in the afternoon live, Tuesday, August 12, right here on Judging Freedom. While you're at it, like and subscribe. Like and subscribe, you expand our base. Late last night, the House of Representatives voted largely along party lines to hold in contempt Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino. Well,

who are they? Well, Peter Navarro was one of the chief economic advisors to President Trump. Full disclosure, I know Peter. He was on Fox News and Fox Business many times when I was there. Dan Scavino is the person who was the president's guru of social media. So all those crazy, wacky tweets that everybody thought were being done by the president himself, the vast majority were done by Dan Scavino, who of course did a brilliant job. Whatever you think of them, whatever you think of the work they did for President Trump during his presidency, they were subpoenaed by the House January 6th Committee, and they declined to reply to the subpoena. The committee voted to ask the entire House to hold them in contempt,

and the entire House of Representatives, again, by a largely party-line vote, did so. So when Roger Stone and Alex Jones were served with subpoenas, they did the right thing. They showed up and they asserted their right to remain silent, protected by the Fifth Amendment. The courts consider that a substantial compliance with the subpoena. It doesn't give the subpoenaing authority what they're looking for, but it shows respect for the authority by claiming a highly regarded, universally accepted natural right, the right to remain silent, expressly protected in the Constitution. Scavino and Navarro didn't do that. They basically told the committee to go take a hike.

A similar situation is the case with Mark Meadows. Full disclosure, a friend of mine for many years, former congressman from North Carolina, and the last of Donald Trump's four, five, or six chiefs of staff. In the case of Mark Meadows, he actually began to cooperate with the committee. He began to supply evidence and documents. He began to answer their questions, and then he didn't want to do it anymore, and he stopped. Well, that's a fatal mistake because you cannot selectively invoke the Fifth Amendment. You can't invoke

your right to remain silent to one question but agree to answer another. It's all or nothing at all. It's either I invoke my right to remain silent as protected by the Fifth Amendment for everything other than your name and address or for nothing. What is the consequence of the House holding you in contempt? Nothing. Nothing. Congress has held members of cabinets, presidents' cabinets of the opposite party in contempt. However, the contempt citation is then sent to the Justice Department, and the Justice Department will decide whether or not to indict. Of the four contempt citations, Mark Meadows, Steve Bannon, Dan Scavino, Peter Navarro, only one has resulted in an indictment, Steve Bannon. So Steve Bannon will be tried now because the maximum penalty for contempt of Congress is six months in jail, Steve Bannon and any of these other fellows, if the DOJ decides to prosecute them, can choose a bench trial that is a trial before a judge. If they want, they can

choose a jury trial. The trial would have to occur during the existence of this Congress, by which I mean because there's an election in November for one third of the Senate and 100% of the House, this Congress will cease to exist on the first Monday in January of 2023. So at that point, any contempt citation by the Congress would be null and void. So the prosecutions would need to commence, Bannon says commenced by an indictment, but the other prosecutions would need to commence while this Congress is still in session. Who knows where this is going to end up. Prediction, a lot more of these, a lot more people being held in contempt of Congress. The Justice Department

probably has more important things to do. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.