- A federal prosecutor said the Justice Department had a "strong desire" to hold the trial soon.
- DOJ hoped to begin the trial while the House January 6 committee remained in existence.
A federal judge on Thursday delayed the trial of former Trump advisor Peter Navarro on contempt of Congress charges, pushing the high-profile proceeding from next week to early January.
Judge Amit Mehta had indicated at a recent hearing that he hoped to begin jury selection as scheduled on November 16, but he determined a delay was necessary in light of a separate high-profile proceeding currently playing out before him: the seditious conspiracy trial of Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodesand four other members of the far-right group.
Mehta set jury selection to begin January 11 in Navarro's case — meaning the trial will start after House Republicans are likely to retake the majority and expected to dissolve the House committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
A grand jury indicted Navarro in June on a pair of contempt of Congress charges stemming from his defiance of the House January 6 committee, which has investigated the attack on the Capitol and efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. With the November start date, Navarro's trial was set to unfold just months after the Justice Department secured a conviction against Trump ally Steve Bannon, in a separate contempt of Congress case related to the House January 6 committee.
Judge Carl Nichols sentenced Bannon to 4 months in prison but allowed him to remain free while he appeals his conviction on a pair of contempt of Congress charges.
Like Bannon, Navarro was referred to the Justice Department for prosecution after the January 6 committee and then the full House voted to hold him in contempt.
On Thursday, Mehta delayed Navarro's trial by two months despite the Justice Department's stated preference of holding the proceeding while the House January 6 committee remained in existence. Federal prosecutor Raymond Hulser said the Justice Department had a "strong desire" to present evidence against Navarro with the House January 6 panel still intact.
Hulser said the US attorney in Washington, DC, Matt Graves, has a "unique role regarding contempt of congress, and he takes it very seriously."
The prosecutor suggested that the Justice Department hoped the trial would pressure Navarro into cooperating.
"As we all know, the trial of matters makes things very pointed," Hulser said.
"If there is any possibility that a person can be convinced by the pressing nature of a criminal trial to say, 'Ok, I will go and I will answer questions, I will provide documents,' we would like to be a catalyst," he added. "That would not make the criminal contempt case go away."
But Mehta insisted on the delay.
"I have my personal views about using the trial date as a lever to make Mr. Navarro take some actions that thus far he's declined to take," Mehta said. "I don't want these proceedings to be a lever in the way the US attorney's suggested it might be."
In a bid to have his criminal prosecution tossed, defense lawyers for Navarro have suggested that he was following direct instructions from Trump in refusing to cooperate with the House January committee's investigation. But Mehta bristled at the defense team's lack of evidence proving that Trump privately urged him to invoke executive privilege rather than testify before the House panel.
"You haven't given me anything," Mehta said at a recent hearing, adding that he was struck by the notion that "a court is supposed to read tea leaves when it comes to the invocation of a presidential privilege."
"I'm mystified by that," he added.
At one point, Navarro's defense lawyer Stanley Woodward addressed the prospect of calling Trump as a witness.
"I don't want to do that," Woodward said.
"Then, what do I do?" Mehta replied.