Former Trump trade aide Navarro gets subpoena warning from panel

Bloomberg

Former White House trade adviser Peter Navarro was warned he’ll be considered in “willful noncompliance” with a Congressional subpoena if he fails to testify to a House panel investigating the Trump administration’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Representative James Clyburn, the committee’s chairman, didn’t specify possible consequences in a letter to Navarro. Navarro told the panel in a letter that he won’t
testify due to “a direct order from former President Donald Trump.”
Clyburn’s warning signals a second front in the House’s subpoena battles with Trump allies who are refusing to cooperate with committee inquiries, which are already under way with a panel investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.
Navarro, who was director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy and assistant to the president, was instructed in a subpoena from the Covid panel to appear for closed-door testimony and produce documents prior to that related to the committee’s investigation.
“Your blanket refusal to comply with the subpoena in its entirety is improper,” said Clyburn of South Carolina, the No. 3 House Democrat. If Navarro doesn’t appear as scheduled and produce the documents by December 15, the committee will view him in “willful noncompliance with the subpoena,” he said.
Navarro said in the letter to Clyburn that he was referring to Trump’s statement on November 20 in which the former president said, “I’m telling Peter Navarro to protect executive privilege and not let these unhinged Democrats discredit our great accomplishments.”
Navarro didn’t respond to a request for comment left on his answering machine. There also was no immediate response from the committee’s top Republican, Steve Scalise of Louisiana.
Clyburn and the six other Democrats on the coronavirus panel are exploring what they say is evidence the Trump administration prioritised political interests that undermined and interfered with the nation’s pandemic response, including in the awarding of medical equipment contracts. There are five Republicans on the panel.