‘Treated horribly by the Deep State’: Trump picks Peter Navarro to return to White House

Peter Navarro, who advised President Donald Trump during his first term in the White House on trade deals and negotiations, is returning to that institution as the new senior counselor for trade and manufacturing, the president-elect has announced.

“I am pleased to announce that Peter Navarros, a man who was treated horribly by the Deep State, or whatever else you would like to call it, will serve as my Senior Counselor for Trade and Manufacturing,” Trump said in a social media statement.

“During my First Term, few were more effective or tenacious than Peter in enforcing my two sacred rules, Buy American, Hire America.”

Trump noted that Navarro’s work then included helping with renegotiations of NAFTA and more.

BREAKING: President Trump has appointed Peter Navarro to serve as Senior Counselor for Trade and Manufacturing. pic.twitter.com/2yhW16Fv1p

— WorldNetDaily (@worldnetdaily) December 4, 2024

By being “treated horribly,” Trump likely was referring to a prison term for contempt of Congress imposed by Democrats as part of their lawfare campaign against Trump himself.

It was when ex-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi set up a partisan committee to “investigate” the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol. That body now is known to have concealed evidence that benefited Trump, such as that he proposed authorizing National Guard troops to prevent violence that day, and was refused.

The committee released a report that essentially claimed Trump wanted an “insurrection” that day, even though the evidence shows it was a protest that turned violent when a few hundred people rioted.

The committee then, according to reports, destroyed the evidence it used for its report.

Navarro was caught up in that agenda against Trump.

The committee demanded he testify about Trump and events that day, and he refused, citing executive privilege. Members of Congress disputed that, had him charged and convicted, and sent to the Federal Bureau of Prisons for four months.

He was released just in time to be a speaker at last summer’s Republican National Convention, at which Trump was formally nominated to his second term in the White House, which he won by a landslide in November.

Navarro was the first former White House official to go to prison following a contempt of Congress conviction. However, months later, Steve Bannon, a Trump ally who served as White House chief strategist, became the second.

His offense essentially was the same as Navarro’s: refusing, based on executive privilege, to tell the Democrat-run Pelosi committee the details it demanded to use against Trump.

At the convention, Navarro warned, “I got a very simple message for you. If they can come for me, if they can come for Donald Trump. Be careful. They will come for you.”

In Navarro’s trial, a judge ordered that he could not use executive privilege as a defense.