MILWAUKEE (AP) — Former Trump White House official Peter Navarro, released from prison Wednesday, condemned the Biden administration for what he called the "weaponization" of the justice system, even as he pledged to offer a message of national unity when he speaks to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
In his first interview since his release from a Florida prison for contempt of Congress, Navarro told The Associated Press he was just one example of what many on the right say is the Biden administration's use of the judiciary to punish its political enemies.
"I'm a small part of the bigger issue," Navarro said, referring to the oft-repeated claim by conservatives that, during President Joe Biden's administration, the justice system has been used to hobble former President Donald Trump and those close to him. "If we don't control the government, the government will control us," Navarro said.
Navarro, who served as a White House trade adviser under Trump, was freed from custody after serving four months for refusing to cooperate with a congressional investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of the Republican president's supporters, according to the federal Bureau of Prisons.
The telephone interview took place as Navarro was awaiting takeoff from a Florida airport for a trip to Milwaukee, where he was to to speak on the third night of the Republican National Convention.
Despite his echo of a common GOP refrain that the Biden administration has "weaponized" the judicial system to punish Trump and his allies, Navarro said he planned to offer a message of unity, a common theme among Republicans in light of the assassination attempt on the former president Saturday.
"To win the election, we have to unite not just the Republican party but the entire country," Navarro said. "I'm going to reach out to Democrats disenchanted with the radical left."
Many "mainstream Democrats" are "disenfranchised, disengaged and disgusted with the radical left," Navarro said. "In Trump's America, people don't have to worry about food on the table, medicine in the cabinet and a roof over their head."
"Unity is my message," he added.
Trump has accused the Justice Department of targeting him politically with indictments in two criminal cases even as the department also brought tax and gun charges against Biden's son, Hunter. Hunter Biden was convicted on three felony charges last month.
A federal judge in Florida this week dismissed one of Trump's federal cases, which accused him of hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate. The Justice Department plans to appeal.
Attorney General Merrick Garland has forcefully defended the independence and integrity of the Justice Department against what he has described as unprecedented attacks by Republicans.
"The idea that politics infects our prosecutions, nothing could be further from the truth. We have one rule. We follow the facts, and we follow the law and we make the appropriate decisions," Garland told reporters last month.
Still, Navarro said Democrats are a potentially fertile voting bloc for Trump that he plans to try to reach in his convention speech.
Trump won in 2016 in large part by carrying once-Democratic swaths of states carried by former President Barack Obama in 2012, including Iowa, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
"Just like Donald Trump, I am fighting for important principles," Navarro said
Navarro is set to speak in the 6 p.m. hour Central time, according to a person familiar with the schedule who spoke on the condition of anonymity before the schedule's official release. The Associated Press first reported that Navarro would address the RNC.
Navarro was the first senior Trump administration official to be locked up for a crime related to the Jan. 6 attack when he reported to a federal prison in Miami in March. He has called his conviction the "partisan weaponization of the judicial system."
He was subpoenaed by the committee over his promotion of false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election in the run-up to the Capitol insurrection. He has maintained that he couldn't cooperate with the committee because Trump had invoked executive privilege. Courts have rejected that argument, finding that Navarro couldn't prove Trump had actually invoked privilege.
Longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon reported to prison earlier this month to begin serving his four-month sentence on contempt of Congress charges for defying a subpoena in the congressional Jan. 6 investigation.
The House committee spent 18 months investigating the deadly insurrection, interviewing more than 1,000 witnesses, holding 10 hearings and obtaining more than 1 million pages of documents. In its final report, the panel ultimately concluded that Trump criminally engaged in a "multi-part conspiracy" to overturn his election loss to Biden and failed to act to stop his supporters from storming the Capitol. Trump insists he did nothing wrong.
___
Associated Press reporter Alanna Durkin Richer contributed from Washington.
___
Follow the AP's coverage of the 2024 election at https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024.