Trump White House official Peter Navarro loses his bid for a new contempt of Congress trial

A federal judge on Tuesday rejected a bid for a new trial for Peter Navarro, a Trump White House official convicted of contempt of Congress for refusing to cooperate with a congressional investigation into the U.S. Capitol attack.

Navarro, who served as a White House trade adviser under President Donald Trump, was found guilty by a jury in Washington's federal court for defying a subpoena for documents and a deposition from the House Jan. 6 committee. He's scheduled to be sentenced later this month.

Navarro's lawyers argued he was entitled to a new trial, alleging that jurors may have been improperly influenced by political protesters when they took a break outside the courthouse before announcing a verdict in September.

But U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta said in his ruling that Navarro has not shown that “any prejudice resulted from the jury's eight-minute break outside the courthouse.” Jurors only interacted with one another and the court officer who accompanied them, no one approached the jurors and “there were no activities resembling a ‘protest,'" the judge wrote.