Publicly available court records or Department of Justice announcements

Supreme Court Rejects Navarro's Appeal Over Personal Emails in Trump's Second Administration

Dec 16, 2024, 05:45 PM

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from Peter Navarro, a former Trump White House adviser, in his ongoing legal battle to prevent the federal government from accessing presidential records from his personal email account. Navarro, who served as a trade adviser in the first Trump administration and is set to rejoin President-elect Donald Trump's team for his second administration, argued that the Presidential Records Act does not authorize the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to retrieve private emails from former officials. Lower courts had ruled against him, and the high court rejected his appeal without comment. Navarro's case involves emails related to the coronavirus pandemic, which the Justice Department contends should have been preserved by copying to an official government email account. This decision comes as Navarro prepares for his return to government service and amidst his legal challenges, including a prior contempt of Congress conviction for which he served a four-month prison sentence.