Former White House trade adviser Peter Navarro has no regrets on standing up for the constitutional separation of powers in rejecting a congressional subpoena from the now-defunct, anti-Trump House Jan. 6 select committee.
"For better or for worse, I'm going to be a figure in history in a landmark Supreme Court case," Navarro told MSNBC on Wednesday night. "And the question really before us is whether the legislative branch can compel a senior White House aide and alter ego of the president to testify before Congress?
"And going back to George Washington, the answer has been a resounding 'no.' The DOJ, the Department of Justice, has had a more than 50-year policy that absolute testimony immunity for folks like me, so I am willing to go take this up the chain to the appeals court, probably to the Supreme Court, to resolve this issue."
Navarro's case revolves around the claim of presidential executive privilege when Democrats and two anti-Trump Republicans sought his testimony regarding privileged communications between him and former President Donald Trump on the issues of the 2020 presidential election challenge.
"If you don't have the separation of powers, you can't have candid presidential decision-making," according to Navarro.
"I did the honorable thing," he added. "I did my duty to the country, the Constitution and the law. The president invoked executive privilege, period, full stop. Maybe he didn't do it to the liking of the judge, but he did it. As soon as he did that, it was not my privilege to waive, which I said earlier, 18 months ago on this show.
"And, I also asked the committee, as well as the DOJ, to negotiate a waiver, in which case, I would have been happy to talk. My hands were tied."
Navarro has been convicted for contempt of Congress for refusing to bend to the wishes of the Congress versus the will of the former president, and says he is willing to fight going to jail all the way up to the Supreme Court.
"The principle here is the constitutional separations of powers; that's it," Navarro concluded.
"If it says on my tombstone I stood up for that and defended that, I'll die a happy man."