Peter Navarro Says Donald Trump Can Use Impeachment Trial To His Advantage

Former White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said Friday that President Donald Trump should use the upcoming Senate impeachment trial to his advantage.

Speaking with Newsmax, Navarro argued that this could be a chance for Trump to prove that the 2020 presidential election was rigged for Democrat Joe Biden.

“This is a political trial and the Democrats are coming hard at the president on political grounds. And, this is a free pass for the president because they’ve already acquitted him on the Republican side,” Navarro said, noting that 45 Republican senators have indicated that they won’t vote to convict Trump, deeming the impeachment unconstitutional.

Trump was impeached last month, after Democrats and some GOP lawmakers accused him of inciting an insurrection by telling a violent crowd of his supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol building and stop the certification of Biden’s victory.

According to Navarro, since most Republican senators will not vote to convict the former commander-in-chief, his legal team should “provide an affirmative defense” instead of trying to disprove the allegations made by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives.

Navarro added that Trump should fire his new impeachment lawyers, David Schoen and Bruce Castor Jr., and replace them with people willing to make the case that the 2020 race was rife with irregularities and stolen by the Democratic Party.

Navarro argued that Trump should use his controversial reports about election results and appoint an individual like Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida as his lead attorney.

“You get somebody like Matt Gaetz as your lead attorney instead of that stiff [Castor] you had on and then you use the Navarro Report and other reports that have been put out as your exhibits A, B, C and D,” he said.

As Newsmax noted, Navarro has produced three volumes of his report on the 2020 election, claiming that he has evidence there was widespread voter fraud in the battleground states of Georgia, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona and Pennsylvania.

Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon shares Navarro’s view. In an interview on Friday, Bannon conceded that Democrats have a “compelling case” and argued that Trump’s attorneys should center their legal strategy around the claim that the 2020 race was rigged.

“It has to be dramatic, it has to be big. It has to be the big lie versus the big steal,” Bannon said.

Attorney Alan Dershowitz disagreed, claiming that Trump’s defense team should focus on proving that it is unconstitutional to impeach a former commander-in-chief.