The Jan. 6 Committee subpoenaed Peter Navarro on Wednesday, demanding that the former White House trade advisor and economics talking head provide information about Donald Trump’s attempt to subvert the 2020 election results.
Navarro launched a media tour around that very topic in December 2021, heralding the launch of his book. There, Navarro wrote about his discussions with Stephen K. Bannon about how to use January 6 to delay — and eventually block — the certification of Biden’s win.
“He hasn’t been shy about his role in efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election and has even discussed the former President’s support for those plans,” panel chair Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) said in a statement. “More than 500 witnesses have provided information in our investigation, and we expect Mr. Navarro to do so as well.”
The subpoena notes that Navarro described the plan as the “Green Bay sweep,” casting it as the “last, best chance to snatch a stolen election from the Democrats’ jaws of deceit.”
The subpoena says that the panel is interested in Navarro’s planning with Bannon, and in the creation of the “Navarro Report.” That’s a three-page document which offered up a condensed version of voter fraud claims, curated by Navarro himself.
Navarro told the Daily Beast last month that Trump was “on board” with the plan, which would have seen repeated, sequential challenges to each state’s vote counts. In Navarro’s telling, that would have lasted more than 24 hours, resulting in a televised spectacle.
Bannon and Navarro appeared to believe that this would somehow end in Biden not assuming the presidency, but it’s not clear what it would have done other than delay that from taking place via pointless hearings on discredited allegations of voter fraud.
The plan, Navarro has said, only would have worked had Vice President Mike Pence agreed to go beyond his duties and reject electors.
Pence did not do that.
