President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday said he is bringing a convicted criminal who helped plan his futile attempt to overturn the 2020 election to the White House as a senior member of his administration working on trade issues.
In a statement first posted to Truth Social, Trump said he was bringing on Peter Navarro, the former head of the National Trade Council during his first term, as a “Senior Counselor for Trade and Manufacturing.”
“The Senior Counselor position leverages Peter’s broad range of White House experience, while harnessing his extensive Policy analytic and Media skills. His mission will be to help successfully advance and communicate the Trump Manufacturing, Tariff, and Trade Agendas,” Trump said.
Navarro, an economist who holds a PhD from Harvard University, formerly taught economics and public policy at the University of California, Irvine, and was mainly known for his eccentric views on trade policy before Trump brought him into the White House during his first term starting in 2017.
After Trump lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden, Navarro was instrumental in devising a plan, which he later said he’d dubbed the “Green Bay Sweep,” under which then-vice president Mike Pence would’ve refused to accept electoral votes from swing states won by Biden and instead declared himself and Trump the winner of the election during a joint session of Congress on January 6, 2021.
Pence refused to go along with Navarro’s plan, citing legal opinions which stated he lacked the power to reject electoral votes that had been properly submitted.
In February 2022, the House select committee established to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol issued subpoenas to Navarro for documents and testimony.
He refused to produce documents or appear to give evidence before the panel, and after the House of Representatives voted to hold him in contempt and referred him for prosecution, a District of Columbia grand jury indicted him on two counts of criminal contempt of Congress in June 2022.
More than a year later, a jury convicted Navarro on both counts following a trial in September 2023.
He was sentenced to four months in federal custody, and after courts rejected his appeals, he reported to a federal prison in Miami in March 2024.
Several hours after walking out of prison, Navarro received a standing ovation as he strode on the stage of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
Navarro appeared emotional at times as he waited for the applause to die down before he quipped: “I think you folks just want to know if you can see my MAGA tattoo I got there.”
