Peter Navarro: Capitol Riot Disrupted Plan to Stop Congress from Certifying Biden Win

Peter Navarro, the former economic adviser to President Donald Trump, told the Daily Beast in an interview that the January 6 Capitol riot actually disrupted plans to have Congress overturn the 2020 vote, which had nothing to do with the violence.

The Daily Beast interviewed Navarro about his new book, In Trump Time: My Journal of America’s Plague Year, which he told Breitbart News was being suppressed by the New York Times‘ bestseller list. Navarro detailed a plan, called the “Green Bay Sweep,” which he says was coordinated with former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon and based on legal advice from scholar John Eastman.

The plan allegedly involved using Congress to stall the certification, pressuring then-Vice President Mike Pence to send the vote back to six contested states, and forcing 24 hours of televised hearings on allegations of fraud.

The Capitol riot was totally unexpected, Navarro said, saying that he had met protesters that morning and they were peaceful.

As a result of the riot, Congress faced new pressure to certify the vote as a statement of defiance against political violence. Though arguably Pence had no other choice, Navarro said Pence’s certification of the vote was a Julius Caesar-style betrayal.

Pence does not appear to have been involved in the plan described by Navarro. He has since said it was his constitutional duty to certify the vote. (Pence, asked last month who had told him not to certify the results, quipped: “James Madison.”)

Navarro told the Daily Beast that his account of events exonerates both Trump and Bannon: “They don’t want any part of me. I exonerate Trump and Bannon.”

Navarro is one of several former Trump aides defying a subpoena from the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack; several are suing the committee in federal court, arguing that it violates the Constitution’s separation of powers, the Bill of Rights, and the terms of its own enabling House resolution.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

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