Kinzinger Hails Conviction Of Ex-Trump Adviser Peter Navarro: ‘I Have No Sympathy’
CNN commentator and former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) said he has “no sympathy” after Peter Navarro was found guilty on two counts of contempt of Congress on Thursday.
The former White House trade adviser to Donald Trump refused to comply with a subpoena from the Jan. 6 select committee that investigated the Capitol riot and the events leading up to it. Kinzinger served on the committee before he retired from the House of Representatives.
Kinzinger phoned into The Lead on Thursday to give his reaction.
“It’s great,” he said. “It’s sad that we have to get to this. I mean, the role of the people’s house is to do things like investigations, and especially on something as important as January 6th, as serious as January 6th. And we have people, we had many people – he’s obviously one of them – that simply refused to acknowledge that, that simply tried to hide. You know, we weren’t asking them to come in and embarrass themselves or whatever. We were just asking for information, asking what they knew, and they decided to turn against Congress.”
Steve Bannon, another former Trump adviser was found guilty of contempt of Congress last year and is appealing.
“I have no sympathy for Mr. Navarro right now,” Kinzinger added. “We tried over and over to set up you know, different times, different meetings, different opportunities, and he refused. And so this is justice. We’ll see what he ends up getting, but I think certainly it’s vindicating for the committee.”
Host Jake Tapper mentioned the Bannon conviction and asked, “Ultimately do you think that these two men will see jail time?”
“I guess I don’t know,” Kinzinger replied. “I think jail time would certainly be appropriate. Again, it’s not like somebody made a mistake here and now they’re having to pay the price to the Justice Department for a mistake they made. They proactively, over and over, repeatedly, and in some cases either fundraised or bragged about it, ignored a legal subpoena of Congress which has the power of the courts – the same kind of subpoena of the courts. We just don’t have the enforcement power without going through DOJ.”
He concluded that Bannon and Navarro “deserve, frankly, any jail time they get.”
Watch above via CNN.
