The Washington legal establishment has dealt President Trump’s senior adviser Peter Navarro another blow, but Navarro says the constitutional battle is far from over.
The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Friday denied Navarro’s petition for rehearing en banc, leaving intact a three-judge panel’s decision upholding his criminal contempt-of-Congress conviction.
The court’s terse, one-page order revealed that not a single judge requested a vote on whether the full court should reconsider the case. The court denied Navarro’s petition without further explanation while granting motions to file supporting amicus briefs.
The ruling now clears the way for Navarro to petition the United States Supreme Court.
Navarro issued a blistering response following the decision:
“This case was always headed to the Supreme Court. Deep Blue D.C. Circuit’s denial simply clears the runway. The issue is bigger than me: whether a White House adviser — Republican or Democrat — can be prosecuted and imprisoned for acting on a good-faith belief that a President invoked executive privilege, while being forbidden from presenting that belief to the jury. That is a separation-of-powers question the Supreme Court will now have a chance to answer.”
This case was always headed to the Supreme Court. Deep Blue D.C. Circuit’s denial simply clears the runway.The issue is bigger than me: whether a White House adviser — Republican or Democrat — can be prosecuted and imprisoned for acting on a good-faith belief that a President… https://t.co/03TGzb9N5a
— Peter Navarro (@RealPNavarro) August 28, 2026
Navarro’s attorneys have argued that the government should have been required to prove that he knew his refusal to comply was unlawful, or that he acted with an improper purpose, not merely that his noncompliance was intentional.
They also maintain that Navarro’s good-faith understanding of President Trump’s executive-privilege instruction should have been presented to the jury. The court rejected Navarro’s request for full-court review on August 28.
Navarro was convicted in September 2023 on two counts of criminal contempt after refusing to produce documents and appear for testimony before Nancy Pelosi and Liz Cheney’s partisan January 6 Committee.
Navarro maintained that President Trump had directed him to protect executive privilege. Yet Obama-appointed District Judge Amit Mehta barred Navarro from presenting his good-faith executive-privilege belief as a defense to the jury.
As The Gateway Pundit previously reported, Mehta sentenced Navarro to four months in federal prison and ordered him to pay a $9,500 fine.
Before sentencing, Navarro explained the impossible position in which he had been placed:
“When I received that congressional subpoena, the second, I had an honest belief that the privilege had been invoked, and I was torn. Nobody in my position should be put in conflict between the legislative branch and the executive branch.”
Navarro also condemned a process in which the government was permitted to prosecute him while preventing him from explaining his central defense to the jury.
The D.C. Circuit nevertheless affirmed his conviction in July. The three-judge panel concluded that only the president or an authorized representative can invoke executive privilege and upheld Mehta’s finding that no sufficiently formal invocation had been established for the specific January 6 Committee subpoena.
The panel further ruled that even a proper privilege claim would not have justified Navarro’s complete refusal to appear or produce materials, particularly information involving his public statements and writings.
The case took an extraordinary turn after President Trump returned to office.
Trump’s Justice Department informed the appeals court that it was no longer taking the Biden administration’s position in the case and withdrew its brief defending Navarro’s conviction. The DOJ, however, did not file a new brief or formally move to dismiss the appeal.
The D.C. Circuit then declared that the government had withdrawn from further participation and proceeded to hear Navarro’s appeal with Navarro standing alone.
Despite the federal government no longer defending the Biden-era prosecution, the court upheld the conviction anyway.
The Gateway Pundit has extensively documented the campaign against Navarro. In 2025, the Justice Department dropped a separate Biden-era lawsuit accusing him of improperly retaining presidential records.
That case was tainted by internal communications showing anti-Trump FBI officials discussing, and apparently celebrating, Navarro’s indictment.
Navarro has already served every day of his four-month sentence. But the constitutional danger created by his prosecution remains.
If presidential advisers can be imprisoned for honoring what they sincerely understand to be an executive-privilege instruction—and then be forbidden from explaining that understanding to a jury—future advisers from either political party could face the same trap.
The prison sentence has been served. The constitutional battle is only beginning.
Navarro is now taking that battle to the Supreme Court.
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