Trump White House official Peter Navarro was convicted Thursday of contempt of Congress charges for refusing to cooperate with a congressional investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The verdict came after a brief trial against Navarro, who served as White House trade adviser

under President Trump

and later promoted President Trump’s

the Republicans

baseless allegations of massive voter fraud in the 2020 election he lost.

Navarro was the second Trump aide to face Congressional contempt for the allegations, after former White House adviser Stephen K. Bannon.

Bannon what

Convicted of two counts, Bannon

other

was sentenced to four months behind bars, although he is free pending an appeal.

Judge Amit Mehta scheduled Navarro’s sentencing for January 12. He was convicted in Washington’s federal courthouse of two counts of contempt of Congress, both carrying up to one year in prison.

Attorney Stanley Woodward pleaded for a mistrial, saying the jurors took an outdoor break near where protesters and media regularly gather outside the courthouse, returning a verdict shortly afterwards. Mehta did not immediately comment, but said he would consider written arguments on the matter.

Prosecutors said Navarro acted as if he was above the law when he defied a subpoena for documents and a statement from the House of Representatives committee on Jan. 6.

A lawyer argued that Navarro did not deliberately ignore the January 6 House of Representatives committee. Navarro instead told the staff to contact Trump about what might be protected by executive privilege, something that didn’t happen, Woodward argued.

A judge has ruled that the executive privilege argument is not a defense against the charges, and found that Navarro failed to show that Trump had invoked it. But Woodward said prosecutors had not proven that Navarro acted intentionally or solely out of loyalty to Trump.

Do we know that his inability to meet obligations was, beyond reasonable doubt, not the result of accident, oversight or mistake? he said.

Prosecutors, however, argued that Navarro should have turned over as much material as possible and marked any questions or documents believed to be under executive privilege. They said much of the material the committee sought was already publicly available.

Peter Navarro made a choice. He didn’t choose [to] Adhere to congressional subpoena, prosecutor Elizabeth Aloi said. The defendant chose allegiance to former President Donald Trump over compliance with the subpoena.

Trump faces a federal indictment in Washington and a state indictment in Georgia for trying to reverse his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden, a Democrat. He has denied wrongdoing and said he acted within the law.

The House of Representatives committee on Jan. 6 concluded its work in January, following a final report that found Trump criminally guilty of a multipart conspiracy to overturn and not include the legal result of the 2020 election. managed to act to stop a gang of his supporters from attacking the government. Capitol.