- The DOJ sued former Trump trade advisor Peter Navarro to turn over communications that it said are covered under the Presidential Records Act.
- According to the complaint, Navarro used a ProtonMail account to send and receive such communications and did not copy them to his official government account.
The Department of Justice on Wednesday filed a lawsuit against the former White House official Peter Navarro accusing him of "wrongfully retaining" presidential records "that are the property of the United States."
Navarro served under President Donald Trump from January 2017 to January 2021. He was director of the National Trade Council until April 2017 and director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy from then until Trump left the White House in 2021.
The DOJ alleged in its lawsuit that Navarro violated the Presidential Records Act, which requires presidents and White House staff to preserve official documents and communications including gifts received in office, letters, emails, text messages, and social media posts, and turn those items over to the National Archives at the end of a president's term.
According to the complaint, Navarro used a ProtonMail account while working at the White House to send and receive "messages constituting Presidential records."
He "did not copy each email or message constituting Presidential records that was sent or received on his non-official account or accounts to his official government email account," the lawsuit said. When the National Archives contacted Navarro after Trump left office to obtain the records that he hadn't copied to his government account, Navarro did not respond, the complaint continued.
The DOJ also tried obtaining the records from Navarro before filing its lawsuit. Specifically, department lawyers reached out to Navarro via email and USPS to secure the records that are covered by the PRA, but "discussions with Mr. Navarro's counsel to secure the return of Presidential records ultimately proved unsuccessful," the lawsuit said.
To that end, the department alleges that Navarro's "wrongful retention" of the records "violates District of Columbia law, federal common law, and the PRA." The US has asked the court to order Navarro to turn the records over, as well as "award all other relief that the Court deems appropriate," the complaint said.
The lawsuit is the latest in a growing list of legal troubles for Navarro, who will face a criminal contempt of Congress trial in November after unsuccessfully pushing for a later date in order to promote his new book.
He's one of several Trump White House officials who refused to comply with subpoenas for documents and testimony from the House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol riot.
The committee referred some of those officials — including former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, former chief of staff Mark Meadows, and former communications aide Dan Scavino — to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution. The department declined to bring formal charges against Scavino and Meadows but it charged Bannon with two misdemeanor counts of contempt of Congress. The case went to trial this summer, and Bannon was convicted last month.
Navarro, meanwhile, initially chose to represent himself after being indicted but brought on two defense lawyers the day before his arraignment. His defense team has since accused prosecutors of misconduct, alleging that they were "pushing very hard for a 'speedy trial'" as part of a strategy "to exploit the unrepresented."