The Oversight Project Urges Supreme Court to Hear Peter Navarro’s Case
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 5, 2026
Washington, D.C.–The Oversight Project today filed an amicus curiae brief in the U.S. Supreme Court supporting Dr. Peter K. Navarro's petition for a writ of certiorari in Navarro v. United States, No. 26-474. The brief, filed by Jeff Clark, The Oversight Project's Vice President for Litigation and Counsel of Record, and Joseph E. Schmitz, asks the Court to hear the case and to restore the settled meaning of the word “willfully” in the federal contempt-of-Congress statute, 2 U.S.C. § 192.
Dr. Navarro, a former Assistant to the President, served four months in federal prison for “willfully” defaulting on a subpoena from the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th riot at the United States Capitol. He believed President Trump had invoked executive privilege over the testimony and documents the Committee demanded; the President had publicly directed him to claim privilege in response to a prior House subpoena. The jury never weighed that belief. Under the D.C. Circuit's 1961 decision in Licavoli v. United States, the courts below held that a good-faith mistaken belief that executive privilege had been asserted was no defense.
What the brief argues:
- Licavoli conflicts with the Supreme Court's settled reading of "willfully." From United States v. Murdock (1933) through Cheek, Ratzlaf, and Bryan, the Court has held that a willful crime requires a bad purpose or knowledge that one's conduct was unlawful — and Murdock held that a witness withholding information on an unsettled claim of privilege has a right to put his good faith to the jury.
- Text and history confirm the point. Congress placed "willfully" in Section 192’s default clause and omitted it from the refusal-to-answer clause. When the statute was enacted in 1857, an opponent warned it would "punish equally the Cabinet officer and the culprit." "Willfully" is the word that keeps the two apart. Licavoli itself arose from a Senate rackets inquiry whose witness refused even to accept the committee’s telegram.
- The Executive Branch has long read Section 192 not to reach officials who withhold information on a presidential claim of privilege — a position the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel reaffirmed in May 2024, while Dr. Navarro was in prison.
- Any doubt must be resolved against the government under the rule of lenity and the venerable maxim that an ambiguous statute is construed against the lawmaker who drafted it in its own cause.
- The question is exceptionally important and only the Supreme Court can resolve it. The case implicates the question the Court called "unprecedented" in Trump v. Thompson (2022) — whether a former President's privilege survives an incumbent's waiver — which Justice Kavanaugh would have rightly answered in the former President's favor. Judges on every side of the D.C. Circuit’s en banc divide in United States v. Bannon have said only the Supreme Court can fix Licavoli, and the United States withdrew from defending Dr. Navarro's conviction below.
Oversight Project Vice President of Litigation Jeff Clark gave this statement:
“Dr. Navarro has been put through the wringer. He was unconstitutionally prohibited from telling the jury about his claim of executive privilege based on a prior instruction from President Trump. Convicting someone -- Dr. Navarro included -- of most crimes involves showing scienter (bad intent). Dr. Navarro did not have bad intent and we are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to take his case so that his conviction can be reversed and expunged.”
Oversight Project Distinguished Constitutional Fellow Honorable Joseph E. Schmitz gave this statement:
“The Supreme Court should grant Peter Navarro’s petition for certiorari to correct an injustice that goes to the heart of our Bill of Rights. Nobody should face prison time without the government establishing beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant acted with ‘mens rea,’ or an evil intent, especially based on an ambiguous Act of Congress. The D.C. Circuit's 1961 decision in Licavoli v. United States, which allowed this travesty of justice, needs to be reversed, and only the U.S. Supreme Court can do that.”
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