The House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol has issued a subpoena to former White House trade adviser Peter Navarro.
“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,” Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, the chair of the panel, wrote in a statement. “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.”
The panel asked Navarro for records and to appear for a deposition on March 2, the day after President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address.
In a release, the panel detailed that Navarro reportedly worked with former White House adviser Steve Bannon, who himself was indicted late last year for defying a subpoena from the panel, as well as others “to develop and implement a plan to delay Congress’s certification of, and ultimately change the outcome of, the November 2020 presidential election.”
“In his book, Mr. Navarro described this plan as the ‘Green Bay Sweep,'” the statement reads. “In an interview, Mr. Navarro reportedly added that former President Trump was ‘on board with the strategy,’ as were ‘more than 100’ members of Congress.”
As part of this plan, which Navarro described in his book, lawmakers would have challenged election results from six battleground states – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, all states won by Biden – forcing hours and hours of debate in Congress.
“These were the places where we believe that if the votes were sent back to those battleground states and looked at again, there would be enough concern amongst the legislatures that most or all of those states would decertify the election,” Navarro told MSNBC, with the intention of sending “the election to the House of Representatives.”
“It was a perfect plan, and it all predicated on peace and calm on Capitol Hill,” Navarro told the Daily Beast in an interview last year. “We didn’t even need any protesters, because we had over 100 congressmen committed to it.”
The plan would have involved Vice President Mike Pence sending the disputed results back to the states. Pence said as recently as last week that he had “no right to overturn the election.”
Ultimately, hours after the mob of pro-Trump rioters stormed the Capitol in an attempt to overturn the election, Pence certified Biden’s lawful win in the 2020 election.
Five people died during or immediately after the attack, including a police officer.
“Mr. Navarro also released on his website a three-part report, dubbed the ‘Navarro Report,’ repeating many claims of purported fraud in the election that have been discredited in public reporting, by state officials, and courts,” the panel wrote in its statement.
Navarro has not yet responded to a request for comment.
“More than 500 witnesses have provided information in our investigation, and we expect Mr. Navarro to do so as well,” Thompson said in a statement.
This is a developing story. Check back later for further updates.
