Peter Navarro, the former Trump adviser who helped devise a scheme to keep his boss in power after losing a democratic election and who was indicted Friday on two counts of criminal contempt of Congress, “is the picture of a law-abiding American citizen,” Tucker Carlson declared Monday.
“He’s a 72-year-old retired business school professor, he’s got a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University. His most recent job was extremely white-collar,” Carlson said, noting Navarro’s role as trade adviser under President Donald Trump.
“He has never been charged with a crime,” Carlson claimed, falsely. “He has never trafficked fentanyl, for example, from Mexico. In fact, his hobby is yoga and riding his bicycle.”
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Carlson’s whitewashing of this “extremely white-collar” figure who refused to comply with a subpoena from the House committee investigating the Capitol insurrection last Jan. 6 aligns with what others on the right have said since Navarro was taken into custody. Former Trump adviser Jason Miller, for instance, was outraged.
“They went and arrested and put him in handcuffs?” he complained. “I mean, this is Peter Navarro. He’s an economist. He’s a Ph.D. You see that he’s a very serious, very buttoned-up guy, and you’re going to go throw him in handcuffs?”
Carlson’s characterization of Navarro as an elderly, well-educated man who has innocent hobbies also tracks with how the Fox News host has defended those who have faced charges over their alleged role in the Jan. 6 insurrection. Earlier this year, Carlson used the term “thoroughly loyal American” to describe a rioter who allegedly said “hang the traitors” at the Capitol and was later charged with seditious conspiracy. “He’s a senior citizen who walks with a cane,” Carlson said of Thomas Caldwell, with whom he has conducted several amiable interviews. “He’s a devout Christian.”
Referring to Jan. 6, Carlson also claimed that Navarro “had nothing to do with it.” Not only that, but the claim is “not disputed,” Carlson insisted.
“Peter Navarro did not break into the Capitol. He didn’t encourage anyone else to break into the Capitol. He wasn’t even there that day. He had no idea it was going to happen,” the Fox host said.
Just because Navarro wasn’t among the Trump supporters who illegally breached the Capitol, caused $1.5 million in property damage, assaulted police officers, and interrupted the certification of Electoral College votes doesn’t mean he’s in the clear in the eyes of the Jan. 6 committee. After all, the committee is investigating behind-the-scenes maneuvers by those in the Trump administration and those allied with it to try to thwart the democratic process by non-physical means—something that Navarro himself has spoken about to The Daily Beast.
“It was a perfect plan. And it all predicated on peace and calm on Capitol Hill. We didn’t even need any protesters, because we had over 100 congressmen committed to it,” Navarro revealed late last year.
Despite Navarro’s frequent blabbing to the press, he blew off the congressional committee, which he is now suing while serving as his own attorney.
