Updated September 26, 2025 at 12:43 PM EDT
Economist Peter Navarro is a longtime adviser to President Trump who has shaped the administration's hawkish approach to trade, tariffs and China.
He served four months in federal prison last year for defying a subpoena to testify before Congress about the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
In an interview with NPR's Morning Edition, Navarro asserted that the Trump administration is determined to hold accountable former officials who investigated Trump's private and public dealings — actions he sees as motivated by political self-interest rather than alleged criminality of civic responsibility — before Democrats have a chance to recapture power in Congress.
He said that "our mindset" is that Trump's critics will strike again if they're not investigated now.
Navarro spoke with NPR on Monday, as the Trump administration accelerated its effort to prosecute his perceived foes.
Navarro sat with NPR to discuss his new book, I Went to Prison So You Won't Have To, hours after returning from a memorial service for conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated this month. You can watch our conversation above.
Below are some key points:
He says time is running short to investigate Trump's past opponents
Navarro listed a number of people who, he said, should be targeted, including former FBI Director James Comey. On Thursday, a federal prosecutor selected by Trump obtained an indictment of Comey on allegation of lying to Congress just days before the statute of limitations on those charges was set to expire.
Navarro mentioned another deadline.
"If the Democrats regain the House in 2026, can you guarantee me right now that they won't subpoena me and everybody else in the White House and the same crap again?" Navarro said. "I'll make the prediction. Of course they will, because they think they can do whatever they want until they're held accountable."
He is still asserting a claim of executive privilege
When charged with contempt of Congress for refusing to testify, Navarro said he was prevented from speaking by executive privilege, a president's right to protect certain information from scrutiny. The judge said Navarro had failed to prove that he was covered by this legal principle.
Navarro contends that executive privilege should have been "presumed." Though he has served his time, he is still pursuing an appeal.
He says some fellow inmates praised him as "not a snitch"
He describes meeting inmates in a prison yard early during his time at a minimum-security facility in Miami. "One of the guys says, 'We like you.' And I go, 'Why do you like me?' And they go, 'Well, you're not a snitch.'"
Navarro said he wasn't comfortable being perceived that way, insisting that he would have testified if Trump had cleared him to do so.
He says prosecuting Trump's enemies would be different from his prosecution
"This is a wake-up call," Navarro said, that the justice system was being "weaponized" against Trump supporters. "And this is your punch line here: If you don't hold the people accountable who weaponize that Justice Department, they'll do it again and again and again."
The radio version of this story was edited by Reena Advani and produced by Lilly Quiroz.
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