Bon voyage Peter Navarro!
Circle July 16 on your calendar, brothers and sisters. That is the date of a weird confluence of events. Like the alignment of the planets, on that date former Trump White House aide Peter Navarro and former White House dogsbody Steve Bannon will still be in prison, and a book the former wrote and the latter wrote the introduction to will be published. That confluence will exist for one day only, because Navarro is scheduled for release the following day.
Navarro’s book is called “The New MAGA Deal: The Unofficial Deplorables Guide to Donald Trump’s 2024 Policy Platform,” and it is hilariously full of lies, factual errors and easily-avoided goofs. We always knew Navarro was a liar and a fool, now he has made it official by rushing it into print.
Here is a sampling of the lies, stupidities, factual goofs and blunders Navarro makes: he misidentifies Ashli Babbitt -– the Trump supporter shot dead at the US Capitol and who became a martyr to many on the far right — as a US marine corps veteran. Babbitt in fact served in the US Air Force. Navarro makes the Trump-like claim that the judge in his trial denied him a range of lawful defences. He further claims (absurdly) that his jury was irredeemably biased because they saw some anti-Trump protesters shortly before finding him guilty. Navarro keeps alive the MAGA lie (without evidence) that most of the January 6 insurrectionists were Antifa and “agent provocateurs – including FBI informants.”
Navarro also claims (without evidence) that “J6 violence was also apparently facilitated by Capitol Hill police officers, some of whom removed barriers and waved protesters” into the Capitol Building. Navarro also claims — in direct contradiction to video evidence and without a shred of supporting evidence — that Nancy Pelosi, then House Speaker, “rejected the 10,000 national guard troops requested by President Trump leading up to J6.” In fact, there isn’t any evidence anywhere, no phone records, text messages, witness testimony or contemporaneous claims by Trump that he ever tried to stop the violence at the Capitol. Quite the contrary, there is plenty of evidence that Trump wanted violence.
Navarro also claims that Trump martyr wannabe Rosanne Boyland was “beaten to death by Capitol police,” when in fact she died in a crush of protestors. Videos claiming to show police beating her have been completely debunked.
“How do you spell ‘mistrial’?” Navarro rhetorically asks. Clearly, as far as Peter Navarro is concerned, you spell it J A I L.
Navarro was instrumental in the chaotic response to the Covid-19 pandemic, which catastrophically resulted in more than one hundred million American infections and more than a million American deaths. Navarro offers no apologies for that. Navarro also boasts about his efforts to change results in battleground states during the 2020 presidential election, notably via a plan he called the “Green Bay sweep” — the attempt to block the electoral college vote count. That in turn placed him in the sights of the House January 6 committee, who subpoenaed Navarro. Navarro refused to comply with the subpoena, claiming his work for Trump was shielded by executive privilege. That false claim in turn led to his trial and conviction for contempt of Congress.
Navarro’s book is full of the now-familiar conspiracy theory fodder used by charlatans for decades: claims made without evidence, exaggerations, anecdotal evidence from questionable sources and repeated lies that have already been thoroughly debunked. Navarro couldn’t have written most of this crap if he didn’t already understand that it was a lie. It’s yet another book doomed to failure. Not even disinterested students of history will buy it. And most of MAGA is, at best, marginally literate.
It’s worth noting that, according to federal sentencing guidelines, a convicted criminal is required to serve at least 85% of his or her jail sentence. Navarro’s 17 July release date means he will have served 100% of his four month (120 days) sentence. Clearly, whatever Navarro did to have to serve his entire sentence, let’s hope Steve Bannon does the same. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.