In a court filing on Monday, federal prosecutors claimed that former White House aide Peter Navarro told agents attempting to serve him a subpoena to “get the f*** out of here” and that the methods used during his arrest were appropriate for an “unpredictable subject” with “an extensive history of seeking news coverage.”
In the filing, attorneys for the Department of Justice rejected Navarro’s claim that the agency is withholding discovery material in its case against the former Trump trade adviser, and federal prosecutors also argued that Navarro has misrepresented “facts and his posture toward the Government at the time of his arrest.”
PETER NAVARRO SLAMS FEDERAL PROSECUTORS, WHO ACCUSED HIM OF LYING ABOUT ARREST, FOR ‘FALSE’ CLAIMS
“Contrary to the Defendant’s claims, however, it is not law enforcement’s normal practice to ask combative, unrepresented subjects to self-surrender,” federal prosecutors said in the filing.
The DOJ claimed that a few days before Navarro was arrested on the tarmac of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Washington, D.C., he “refused to open the door” of his house to agents serving him a subpoena and then, when he did, he told the agents to “get the f*** out of here.”
Lawyers for the government argued in the filing that Navarro’s arrest at the airport followed the U.S. Marshals Service’s standard arrest procedures, which include being strip-searched and put in leg restraints.
Navarro claimed that being put in “leg irons” and strip-searched after his arrest were discriminatory actions atypical for people facing his type of charges.
The filing stated that Navarro has “an extensive history of seeking out news coverage” and that in order to “avoid a media circus, the arresting agents encountered the Defendant in a discrete location on the jet-bridge at the airport, removed him to the tarmac, and took him to be booked from there — all out of sight of the public.”
The DOJ added that Navarro’s arrest operation was “aimed at safely and efficiently handling an unrepresented, unpredictable subject without a media frenzy” and that his claims of discriminatory action are “meritless.”
Navarro is facing contempt of Congress charges for failing to comply with a subpoena from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
In a statement provided to the Washington Examiner, Navarro said his response to the government’s attempt to subpoena him was a “peaceful but stern rebuke to their heavy-handed tactic.”
“On page 2 of its filing, the Government acknowledged that I voluntarily and peacefully accepted a subpoena on Feb 9 by email and the Government was also aware that I had done exactly the same thing in accepting voluntarily a subpoena from the Coronavirus Sub-Committee. Given that established pattern of very peaceful cooperation, FBI agent Walter Giardana could have easily done the same thing with the FBI’s grand Jury subpoena but instead played the jackboot card with an early morning, wake me up from a deep sleep, pounding on my door, which resulted in a peaceful but stern rebuke to their heavy-handed tactic,” Navarro told the Washington Examiner.
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“What the Government leaves out of its filing is the fact that on June 1, two days before my June 3rd leg iron, over the top arrest, I called Giardana twice for a total of five minutes and let him know cordially that I would be happy to voluntarily cooperate with whatever action they wanted to take,” he added.
“I also send a modus vivendi letter to Deputy Attorney Elizabeth Aloi at DOJ asking her to contact my attorney if they had any questions — she did not,” Navarro said. “Instead, Giardana and four other armed agents needlessly stalked me to the airport, handcuffed me, and denied my request for legal advice while Giardana and an accomplice were present for my strip search and leg irons. And yes, while I was incommunicado from the press, my attorney, or anyone else for almost three hours, the FBI leaked their public punishment stunt to the press. This all adds up to significant animus on the part of the Government and the FBI and proper discovery would help us all get to the bottom of yet another stain on the FBI, with Mar-a-Lago being just the latest.”
