Former President Trump said he would “absolutely” rehire his former White House adviser Peter Navarro if re-elected in November, despite Navarro currently in prison.
Navarro is two months into his four-month prison sentence for refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
“I would absolutely like to have Peter back. This outrageous behavior by Democrats should not have happened,” Trump said in a statement to The Wall Street Journal.
Navarro, 74, checked himself into a federal prison in Miami in mid-March. He has said he does not want a pardon from Trump if he is re-elected.
Navarro hopes the Supreme Court will release him while he appeals his conviction. The country’s highest court has now rejected his request twice, but Navarro continues to insist that the judges should hear his case.
“I will not give the Supreme Court any excuse to avoid what is otherwise a landmark constitutional case regarding the separation of power and executive privilege,” Navarro wrote from prison in an email to the Journal .
The former Trump aide was convicted last year of two counts of contempt of Congress. One charge involved failing to produce documents related to the attack on the Capitol, and the second involved skipping his testimony before the House select committee investigating.
Navarro said he has “no regrets” because he “didn’t choose this fight, this fight chose me.”
He will be released from prison on July 17, two days after his 75th birthday.
On the day of his release, Navarro plans to fly to Milwaukee for a book signing for his book “The New MAGA Deal: The Unofficial Deplorables Guide to Donald Trump’s 2024 Policy Platform,” which will be released around the GOP convention and will be an unofficial guide for Trump’s potential second-term policies, the Journal reported.
Trump is currently on trial on charges that he tried to conceal a hush money payment to a porn star lover intended to boost his 2016 election prospects.
He also faces three other criminal cases, including two over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, but trials in those cases may not begin until November.
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