CNN commentator Adam Kinzinger said Thursday on “The Lead” that former White House trade adviser Peter Navarro and former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon deserve jail time after being found guilty of contempt of Congress.
Reacting to Navarro’s conviction, Kinzinger said, “It’s great. It’s sad that we have to get to this. I mean, the role of the people’s house is to do things like investigations, and especially on something as important as January 6th, as serious as January 6th. And we have people, we had many people – he’s obviously one of them – that simply refused to acknowledge that, that simply tried to hide. You know, we weren’t asking them to come in and embarrass themselves or whatever. We were just asking for information, asking what they knew, and they decided to turn against Congress. I have no sympathy for Mr. Navarro right now.
Anchor Jake Tapper asked, “He is the second Trump aide who has been found guilty of contempt of Congress. Steve Bannon was found guilty last year of the same two charges. That case is on appeal. Ultimately, do you think that these two men will see jail time?”
Kinzinger said, “I guess I don’t know. I think jail time would certainly be appropriate. Again, it’s not like somebody made a mistake here, and now they’re having to pay the price to the Justice Department for a mistake they made. They proactively, over and over, repeatedly, and in some cases either fundraised or bragged about it, ignored a legal subpoena of Congress, which has the power of the courts – the same kind of subpoena of the courts. We just don’t have the enforcement power without going through DOJ. I think they deserve, frankly, any jail time they get.”
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