‘This is America’: Jamie Raskin delivers fiery speech condemning Trump aides Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino

‘This is America and there is no executive privilege here for presidents’, the congressman says

Rep Jamie Raskin delivered a fiery speech during the 6 January committee’s session on Monday night during which the members voted to hold former Donald Trump aides Dan Scavino and Peter Navarro in contempt.

During the vote, Democratic Congressman Raskin took aim at Mr Navarro’s claim that his communications were covered by “executive privilege”, a principle that Mr Raskin pointed out was “nonsense talk” and has now been “rejected by every court that has looked at it”.

“This is America and there is no executive privilege here for presidents, much less trade advisers, to plot coups and organise insurrections against the people’s government and the people’s constitution and then to cover up the evidence of their crimes,” Mr Raskin said. “Peter Navarro must be held in criminal contempt of Congress and the American people because he’s acting with criminal contempt for the Congress and the American people.”

Executive privilege has also been invoked by several Trump administration figures who, the committee believes, hold key communications surrounding the events that led to the 6 January insurrection, including the president himself.

“The two contempt citations we vote on tonight will go to persons who have critical information about both components of this assault on America and the coordination between them,” Mr Raskin said.

Later that night, the House select committee investigating the 6 January riot voted to hold Mr Navarro and Mr Scavino in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with the committee.

In the vote, the committee specifically noted how Mr Navarro had attempted to develop a plan to delay the certification of the 2020 election.

In Mr Raskin’s fiery rebuke of Mr Navarro, he cited the former Trump trade adviser’s so-called “Green Bay Sweep” plan as “an insult to Green Bay Packers all over the country”.

“[Had it] not been blocked by the bravery of our police officers, 150 of whom were injured, wounded or hospitalised by insurrectionary violence and by the vice president’s refusal to abandon his constitutional duties, this attempted coup would’ve, ‘permanently ended the peaceful transition of power in America’ threatening the survival of democracy and the constitution,’ as United States district judge David Carter put it so powerfully in his remarkable decision today,” Mr Raskin said.

The Maryland Democrat went onto eviscerate Mr Navorro’s “dubious” claims of executive privilege, emphasising that they were “entirely irrelevant”.

“Even if President Biden tried to assert executive privilege for Peter Navarro, it would fail immediately because the privilege does not apply to private political business much less to criminal activity like conducting coups or insurrections against the government,” he said, adding that “privilege applies only to professional speech on government policy by advisers rendering confidential advice on matters within their domain of professional responsibility”.

Before waiving his time to the select committee chairman, Mr Raskin closed by contrasting the work the group is doing to defend democracy domestically with the efforts the federal government is doing on the international stage with Ukraine.

“We are fighting to defend the institutions and values of democracy at home against coup plotters and insurrectionists. And we are supporting other democracies around the world under siege by autocrats and kleptocrats and bullies and despots,” he said.

“We are on the side of the people of Ukraine, against Vladimir Putin, who is not a genius, but a mass murderer and we stand strong on the side of democracy … [and] against people who smashed our police officers in the face with confederate battle flags and tried to cancel out the results of our presidential election.”

He finished by stating that, “these two men are in contempt of congress and we must cite them both for their brazen disregard for their duties and for our laws and our institutions”.

Mr Navarro was subpoenaed to produce documents by 23 February 2022 and to appear for a deposition on 2 March, but the former trade adviser failed to both produce documents and attend his scheduled deposition.