Peter Navarro, President-elect Donald Trump's pick to be senior counselor for trade and manufacturing, told Newsmax on Friday that it would be bad for democracy should President Joe Biden finish his terms with blanket pardons for people who have yet to be accused of crimes.
Biden reportedly is mulling whether to issue preemptive pardons to a range of current and former public officials, including Sen.-elect Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., who were part of the House select committee investigating the events of Jan. 6, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol.
Another name being floated is Dr. Anthony Fauci, former head of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
"I was thinking a lot about how to stop that," Navarro, who was a trade adviser in Trump's first term, told "Rob Schmitt Tonight." "How about this ... charge anybody with obstruction of justice who's involved in the conception, the writing, the drafting and the taking to the finish line any of those pardons."
"If they get into this business of blanket pardons for people who actually committed real crimes, that's not going to be good for a democracy," Navarro said. "I mean, Fauci and the lab and the millions of people who died [from COVID-19]. Schiff felony lying to Congress. ... You can just go on down the list."
Fauci has been accused of lying to Congress about the origins of the coronavirus and whether the U.S. was facilitating gain of function research at a lab in Wuhan, China, from where many believe the virus leaked. The House censured Schiff last year for his actions while chair of the House Intelligence Committee in leading investigations during Trump's first term, spreading false accusations that Trump's 2016 campaign colluded with Russia.
Navarro served four months in federal prison for defying a congressional subpoena issued by the House select committee investigating Jan. 6.
"These people need to be held accountable in some sense, so we can get back to a democracy where one party doesn't try to put the other party in jail," Navarro said. "And I'm the I'm the poster child for that.
"Me and [Steve] Bannon are the only two who went to jail because of those people. So don't be telling us that we can't address this situation because we must."
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Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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