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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   26244 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 22, 2024

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Trump aide Peter Navarro has been sentenced to jail for contempt of Congress; Navarro has cited executive privilege as a Presidential advisor, on separation of powers grounds, in his refusal of the subpoena. Per NBC News:

Navarro helped spread misinformation about the 2020 election after Trump's loss and issued a report that Trump falsely said proved that it was statistically “impossible” for him to have lost the election. Trump referred to the report in his infamous "will be wild" tweet on Dec. 19, 2020, encouraging supporters to travel to Washington for a "Big protest" on Jan. 6. That tweet, many Jan. 6 defendants have said, is what drew them to Washington.

Navarro's lawyer asked that any sentence imposed Thursday be immediately stayed due to "novel issues" presented in the case, including Navarro's purported belief that Trump had invoked executive privilege.

NBC has gone all in on bad journalistic practices. The highlights in the quotes are mine, and are my focus.

  • misinformation - a Newspeak word meaning “inaccurate information that people write and spread inadvertently” but implying deliberate disinformation (lies or misframed/“spun”/“technically true” information). Note no “alleged” before this; they’re claiming this as a fact, but without specifics or scope. If Navarro ever mistakenly spoke a single piece of untrue information between 11/2020 and today, this sentence is defensible were Navarro to sue for defamation.
  • and - the placement implies that the report mentioned in the next clause is the misinformation mentioned in the previous clause. My journalism professor would have marked my grade down for that on any assignment.
  • Trump falsely said proved - They don't say the report has been debunked or disproven. They imply that by flatly stating Trump was incorrect (implying but not alleging he was lying) in saying that a proving of the report had occurred. What standard are they using to define “proof”? No idea; no statistician was cited herein, nor court documents, nor any other attempts to prove.
  • “Big protest” - quotation marks which indicate Trump’s actual words, doing double duty as skepticism quotes, heavily hinting that Trump intended insurrection, not first Amendment petition for redress of wrongs.
  • Navarro's purported belief - here they’re weaseling their words as a good journalist does with any statement which is unprovable, but on something they know Navarro would never sue over for defamation, giving the impression that Navarro may be lying when he purports that belief.

This piece is propagandistic in these sentences at the end of the article, which are designed to give the reader background info about the case.

From the above link

Navarro was convicted in September on two counts for refusing to testify and provide documents to the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, which issued its report and dissolved in late 2022 after Republicans won control of the House.

The charge carried a mandatory minimum sentence of a month in prison. Federal prosecutors had sought six months for Navarro, saying he, “like the rioters at the Capitol, put politics, not country, first, and stonewalled Congress’s investigation.” Navarro, prosecutors said, “chose allegiance to former President Donald Trump over the rule of law.” Federal prosecutors said Navarro “thumbed his nose” at the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

This continues in the tradition of people being associated with Trump or defending him, like Jan 6th, being arrested . At least many of the sentences are very short but the definite risk of jail and career and reputational loss must be taken into consideration for anyone who wants to associate with Trump. Trump himself is still untouchable as those around him keep falling.

How is Trump untouchable? He seems to be getting touched up plenty.

I would think the risks of arrest could easily be fixed by blanket pardons at the end of his term. And I would think at this point it’s entirely justified though have the media would report the pardons as evidence everything he does is illegal.

Ironically, your own post, if you don’t read the article, suggests Navarro was jailed for his comments around January 6 and not for defying a congressional subpoena, which carries a mandatory jail term because of the principle that nobody should be able to refuse an appearance before the legislature.

Trump aide Peter Navarro has been sentenced to jail for contempt.

Fixed.

I’m curious on that point. Would jail be mandatory if Clarence Thomas or Kamala Harris were subpoenaed, and refused on separation of powers grounds? If so, that’s a huge way for one branch to wreck another.

Would jail be mandatory if Clarence Thomas or Kamala Harris were subpoenaed, and refused on separation of powers grounds?

In theory, this could be contempt; whether it could result in jail time is much more complicated. At the trivial level, as Eric Holder demonstrated, even the clearest and most bipartisan finding of contempt of congress won't matter if the DoJ doesn't want to bring the charge to court. Even if charges are brought, there are some defenses.

Standard precedent on the matter is that Thomas or Harris would indeed have to appear and if they wanted to plead privilege they would have to do so on an individual question basis.

Thus there are hilarious exchanges like

  • Congressperson: What is your name and position
  • Testifier: I decline to answer that question on the grounds of executive privilege
  • Congressperson: So you are implying that saying that your name and position are privileged
  • Testifier: I decline to answer that question on the grounds of executive privilege
  • Congressperson: Let the record show the witness declined to state their name due to privilege. Sir, did you have breakfast today?
  • Testifier: I decline to answer that question on the grounds of executive privilege

Congress can then hash it out in court if they believe any of those answers constitute contempt of Congress and a court can then hash it out in the context of a specific question (or perhaps in a request for a document).

See https://casetext.com/case/committee-on-judiciary-v-miers-2 in the context of compelling a "senior presidential adviser" to appear before Congress.

I suppose the idea is that even if ridiculous they should have to appear, and indeed that has been precedent for a while. I agree that this could become a strategy, like scheduling such a high number of necessary appearances that the normal functioning of government is disrupted. It’s an interesting problem.

See above, but the Court in Miers was clear that Congress was only asking "several hours".

I expect that attempts to actually occupy any nontrivial fraction of senior officials' time will not work.

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