The Justice Department is urging a judge to reject at trial former Trump Administration security adviser Peter Navarro‘s claims of executive privilege.

On Tuesday, the DOJ filed a last-minute response after Navarro successfully delayed the trial after forwarding a January letter from former President Trump’s attorney shortly before arguments were scheduled to begin.

According to The Hill, the DOJ argues the letter does not change the case, as the jury “should be charged with deciding only the essential elements of the charged offense, that is: whether the Defendant knew he had been subpoenaed by the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol…to produce documents and appear for a deposition, and nonetheless made a deliberate decision not to do either.”

Navarro was subpoenaed by the now-disbanded committee in February of last year as lawmakers sought to speak to the trade and coronavirus adviser about the Navarro Report, a three-part series he compiled claiming to “provide a demonstration that President Trump had a good faith belief that the November 3, 2020 Presidential election results, were, indeed, the poisonous fruit of widespread fraud and election irregularities.” 

At the time, Navarro claimed executive privilege, however, it took nearly a year for Trump to make such an assertion through his lawyer.

Numerous Trump officials have claimed executive privilege as the DOJ has sought to compel their testimony.

The House voted to hold Navarro in contempt of Congress last April.

But the filing also argues that such a privilege cannot be used as a blanket excuse to avoid all questions, noting the committee largely wished to speak with Navarro about “matters undertaken in his personal capacity with persons outside the government” rather than any conversations he may have had with Trump.

“Because the Defendant failed to raise an immunity claim with the committee, he should not now be allowed to invoke testimonial immunity after the fact to foreclose prosecution,” DOJ wrote. 

The Justice Department has ordered former Trump administration trade advisor Peter Navarro to hand over hundreds of emails from a personal encrypted account that he used while working in the White House.

Navarro was required to turn over any records generated or received while working in his official capacity for the president under the Presidential Records Act (PRA). This explicitly includes records sent or received on an unofficial account.

However, the former Trump advisor argued that the PRA does not impose an obligation on him to turn over presidential records, cannot be enforced because there is no explicit mechanism, and is “’vague’ and unsettled,”

In Thursday’s opinion, District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly rejected each of Navarro’s arguments as to why he felt he didn’t need to turn over the emails from his personal account.

“These arguments ignore or contravene the statute’s purpose, framework and provisions,” Kollar-Kotelly noted in her opinion.

According to reports from The Hill, Navarro’s attorneys identified between 200-250 emails that would qualify as presidential records in response to a request by the Department of Justice, but he refused to turn them over.

The DOJ sued Navarro for the Proton Mail account materials last year after the former adviser refused to turn them over without a “grant of immunity.”