A federal court in Washington DC sentenced former trade advisor to former US President Donald Trump, Peter Navarro, on Thursday on two counts of contempt of Congress related to the January 6 insurrection to four months prison. Navarro was previously found guilty of the two counts following a September 2023 jury trial in the Federal District Court for the DC Circuit.

According to the US Department of Justice (DOJ), Navarro’s convictions followed charges related to Congress’ investigation of the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot following the 2020 US presidential election. Those charges included, “one contempt count related to [Navarro’s] refusal to appear for a deposition and another count related to [Navarro’s] refusal to produce documents in response to the Congressional subpoena.”

The presiding judge in the case, Judge Amit Mehta, also ordered Navarro to pay a fine of $9,500.

Prior to Navarro’s trial, his defense team pursued a claim of executive privilege by arguing that Navarro’s involvement in Trump’s administration permitted Navarro to defy Congressional requests for information in the January 6 probe. Mehta was not persuaded, however, and banned Navarro from raising the executive privilege defense during trial on the grounds that no evidence was presented indicating Trump ever invoked the privilege. During an exchange at Thursday’s sentencing hearing, Mehta told Navarro’s lawyers that their repeated reliance on claims of executive privilege were misplaced. “The words executive privilege are not magical incantations,” Mehta said. “It’s just not, it’s not a get-out-of-jail-free card.”

Navarro becomes the second former Trump administration official to be convicted and sentenced to jail time for their role in defying Congressional investigators on the January 6 probe. Prosecutors alleged that both Navarro and Bannon were central planners in an effort to send fake slates of presidential electors to Congress as pretext for the violent overthrow of US democracy. In 2022, Trump’s former advisor Steve Bannon was also convicted on contempt of Congress charges related to January 6. Bannon, much like Navarro, was eventually sentenced to serve four months in federal prison.

In a DOJ sentencing memo sent to Mehta last week, federal prosecutors said that the actions of Navarro, Bannon and those who participated in the Capitol riot on January 6 threatened the integrity of the US government. “The defendant, like the rioters at the Capitol, put politics, not country, first, and stonewalled Congress’s investigation,” said US Attorney Matthew Graves in the memo. “[Navarro] chose allegiance to former President Donald Trump over the rule of law.” Trump currently faces criminal charges of his own on the events leading up to and during the Capitol riot on January 6.

Navarro’s lawyers told the judge on Thursday that their case is “far from over” and filed an appeal of the sentence later that day.