Supreme Court leaves in place ruling requiring former Trump adviser Peter Navarro to turn over presidential email records
Peter Navarro arrives for opening arguments in his trial on contempt of Congress charges at US District Court in Washington
By John Fritze, CNN
(CNN) — The Supreme Court on Monday declined to wade into Peter Navarro’s yearslong battle with the government over presidential records, brushing aside an appeal from President-elect Donald Trump’s former trade adviser without hearing from the Biden administration in the case.
The National Archives and Records Administration has demanded Navarro turn over presidential records he kept on his private email during the first Trump administration, but Navarro has resisted and asked the Supreme Court to look into his case in October.
The high court declined to do so Monday without comment or noted dissent. The federal government waived its right to respond to Navarro’s appeal.
Navarro described his litigation as “of critical political significance” in a briefing earlier this year because it could have determined how the government enforces the Presidential Records Act, a post-Nixon era law that requires the preservation of presidential documents.
But lower courts consistently sided with the Justice Department in the dispute.
“These arguments are without merit under clear, longstanding precedent,” a panel of three federal appeals court judges in Washington — all appointed by Democratic presidents — wrote of Navarro’s case in April.
The decision leaves in place a lower court order that required Navarro to turn over the documents.
Earlier this year, Navarro tried to get the Supreme Court to help him avoid prison in a separate case involving his decision to defy a subpoena from the congressional committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. Chief Justice John Roberts rejected that request in March.
That same month, Navarro reported to a federal prison in Miami to serve a four-month sentence, making history as the first former White House official to be imprisoned for a contempt of Congress conviction. He spoke at the Republican National Convention just hours after his release in July.
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