Ari Melber Had To Explain To Former Trump Advisor Peter Navarro, Who’s Suing The Jan. 6 Committee, That ‘Investigators Can Hear You When You Talk On TV’

Peter Navarro is flying very close to the sun. In late 2021, the former advisor to Donald Trump published In Trump Time: My Journal of America’s Plague Year, a memoir of the former president’s final days in office. In what seemed like a not-so-bright move, the book detailed all sorts of behind-the-scenes shenanigans, including how Navarro and Steve Bannon worked together to concoct a plan to decertify the 2020 election.

When Navarro was asked about whether he was concerned about this massive overshare, as it seemed like just the sort of information the January 6th committee would be interested in hearing, he laughed at the notion. “They don’t want any part of me,” Navarro insisted, adding that “I exonerate Trump and Bannon.”

Fast forward to Monday of this week, when Navarro confirmed that he had received a grand jury subpoena to testify in the ongoing January 6th inquiry—then promptly sued the committee and the Department of Justice. But rather than keep a low profile and say nothing about the very things the committee wants to speak with him about, Navarro is instead making the media rounds to tell his side of the story. And answer the very same questions the committee wants to ask him. While Ari Melber was happy to let Navarro spill his guts, he also felt compelled to point out the idiocy (our word, not Melber’s) in making an even more public figure of himself. As Melber told him:

You’re waging this legal battle not to talk to the committee. Not to talk potentially to the DOJ, although as you’ve said, TBD. So you’re risking going potentially to jail not to talk to them but you’re out here talking in public. You do realize these investigators can hear you when you talk on TV?

Navarro didn’t really have a good answer for that, which probably doesn’t bode well for the fact that he is acting as his own lawyer.