Another memoir from Trump World shows depth of deceit
Former White House trade adviser to former President Donald Trump, Peter Navarro, is currently shilling a memoir. In his book, In Trump Time, he says that it was he and conspiracy blowhard Steve Bannon that were responsible for coordinating an effort among congressional legislators to stop certification of Joe Biden’s win in 2020.
Navarro and Bannon called the plan the “Green Bay Sweep,” an homage to a famous play in football dreamed up by NFL coach Vince Lombardi where a running back takes a handoff and runs parallel with the scrimmage line before finally heading back upfield behind the lead blockers.
In an interview last week with The Daily Beast, Navarro said he and Bannon coordinated with Reps. Paul Gosar of Arizona and Ted Cruz of Texas.
“We spent a lot of time lining up over 100 congressmen, including some senators. It started out perfectly. At 1 p.m., Gosar and Cruz did exactly what was expected of them. It was a perfect plan,” Navarro said before insisting all that was done was “predicated on peace and calm on Capitol Hill,” he wrote.
His boast continued: “We didn’t even need any protestors, because we had over 100 congressmen committed to it.”
He also insists that he wasn’t trying to overturn the election. Rather, the reason why Navarro and Bannon thought the maneuver so clever was because it would force the clock to be dragged out during the joint certification session.
In an article by Rolling Stone, Navarro reveled in the idea that objections by so many lawmakers could eat up to 24 hours of televised hearings.
Such drama would be built around the objections that it would “put the certification of the election on ice for at least another several weeks,” he wrote.
This would be the perfect time to have states look at Trump’s claims of fraud in the 2020 race and all that was needed was for Mike Pence to be on board.
Unfortunately for them, he was not.
Just as the certification session commenced on Jan. 6, Pence released a letter saying he did not have “unilateral authority” to overturn the results. He did, however, amplify Trump’s concerns about election fraud.
Jan. 6 Pence Letter by Daily Kos on Scribd:
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A detail highlighted by Navarro may raise a few skeptical eyebrows.
In his memoir, the former White House official suggests that the insurrection was a detriment to the Green Bay Sweep.
The insurrection, Navarro says in hindsight, deflected from their goal. Lawmakers, be they Democrat or Republican, could have pointed to the melee after the attack and used it as an excuse to stop more challenges to the electoral results.
The Green Bay Sweep, Navarro wrote, ended “ingloriously” because “Pence blew the play.”
Pence, the subject of much derision by the president and his hangers-on toward the end of the administration’s time in office, would now secure his place in history as “the Brutus most responsible for the final betrayal of President Trump,” Navarro wrote.
Pence’s refusal “secured his place in history as the Brutus most responsible for the final betrayal of President Trump,” he railed.
It is unclear if Navarro will be hit with a subpoena by the Jan. 6 committee. His role promoting election fraud conspiracy was vast; he composed a 36-page report last December entitled The Immaculate Deception and he regularly parroted Trump’s bogus claims of fraud in the wake of Trump’s defeat.
Navarro’s colleague, Bannon, has refused to comply with a subpoena by the select committee and wound up being referred by Congress for criminal contempt. The Justice Department indicted him in short order and his trial is now slated for the summer.
Bannon is out on bail and in the meantime, he’s hosted Navarro on his podcast, War Room, as recently as last week. During a Dec. 17 appearance, Navarro questioned the legitimacy of the Jan. 6 committee despite the fact that courts have upheld its constitutionality and have recognized its function as a legislative body.
Navarro did find time during the interview to heap praise on Bannon glowing reviews. Pointing at him, Navarro gushed: “January 6, this whole notion that little [Rep.] Jamie Raskin’s got that, somehow, President Trump wanted to do an insurrection? You were the hero of January 6.”
“Pence is the quarterback, we had a hundred people working on the Green Bay team as linemen, half backs and full backs, pulling guards, who were going to make sure we remanded the results back to the battleground states for a couple of weeks, so we could get to the bottom of that,” Navarro said.
Navarro did not return a request for comment Tuesday.