Former Trump adviser and trade director Peter Navarro was taken into custody Friday after being charged with two counts of contempt of Congress for blowing off a subpoena from the House Jan. 6 committee.
Navarro said he was arrested at a D.C.-area airport prior to a scheduled flight to Nashville, Tennessee. While in court and when addressing reporters outside afterward, he complained about his treatment, which he said included being put in handcuffs and “leg irons.”
“Who are these people? This is not America,” Navarro said in court. “I was with distinguished public servants for four years. Nobody ever questioned my ethics.” (In fact, the Office of Special Counsel in 2020 recommended disciplinary action against Navarro after finding that he repeatedly violated the Hatch Act.)
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Once Navarro’s pity-fest made the rounds on television and online, several conservative figures weighed in with similar gripes.
On Jesse Watters Primetime, former Trump aide Stephen Miller began by claiming that “everything [Democrats] are doing is targeted against everyday, hard-working, law-abiding, rule-following Americans.”
Watters chimed in, bringing the discussion around to Navarro: “You can go in and smash and grab a bunch of jewelry and then they’ll book you out in about ten minutes. But if you are Peter Navarro, they will literally pull you off of a plane, shackle you and throw you in the brig.”
Navarro, Miller eagerly replied, “is a senior citizen, and apparently they were worried he would overpower them but for shackling his legs so that he couldn’t run away and break out of the courthouse, a known public safety threat.”
“But gang bangers,” Miller continued, “who are in and out of the system their whole adult lives, beating people up, threatening people, breaking into their homes, dealing drugs, murdering our children–they are just in and out of a revolving door. No bail, no pre-trial detention, no nothing.”
On Newsmax, meanwhile, ex-adviser Jason Miller expressed similar displeasure.
“They went and arrested and put him in handcuffs?” Miller said incredulously. “I mean, this is Peter Navarro. He’s an economist. He’s a PhD. You see that he’s a very serious, very buttoned up guy, and you’re going to go throw him in handcuffs?”
Miller then dismissed the affair as politically motivated, just as many in Trump’s orbit have done when someone close to them is confronted by the legal system they have sought to avoid.
“How do you see this and not think this is purely just the witch hunt against anyone who had anything to do with President Trump,” he said, “or anyone who might have anything to do with President Trump in the future?”
Several tweets from conservative figures also took issue with Navarro’s arrest.
“The heavy-handed tactics of DOJ are disgusting!” wrote former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee.
“Did the police put Nancy Pelosi’s drunkard husband in shackles and leg irons before [he] was arrested? Asking for #PeterNavarro,” added radio host Todd Starnes.
Criticism from Bernie Moreno, a former Republican candidate for Ohio’s Senate seat, echoed Stephen Miller’s.
“If true, this should concern every American about how the left is willing/able to weaponize the Justice system against their opponents,” he wrote. “Contrast how Navarro is treated to the criminals set free in large American cities daily.”
Also, periodic Fox News guest and legal scholar Jonathan Turley concluded a thread on the Navarro indictment with this takeaway: “I also fail to understand why it was necessary [to] haul Navarro off in handcuffs rather than allow a voluntary surrender. Navarro was in court challenging this subpoena on constitutional grounds and was not some flight risk.”
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect that Todd Starnes no longer works for Fox News.
