Peter Navarro, former trade adviser to Donald Trump, accused Mike Pence of treason for refusing to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election ― a power the vice president does not have.
He also seems to think Trump’s vice president should have been more loyal to the president than to the country.
Speaking on the right-wing Newsmax network on Monday, Navarro ― who was indicted last month for refusing to comply with a subpoena from the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection ― said:
“The reason why I think Pence is guilty of treason, to at least President Trump and perhaps to this country, is that he acted on the basis of a flawed legal opinion concocted by his own general counsel that he did not share with either the president or with the president’s White House legal counsel. Due process plus duty to the commander in chief required you to do that.”
Treason is the only crime specifically defined in the U.S. Constitution. It’s an act of war by an American against the United States or giving aid and comfort to the nation’s enemies.
It is not personal disloyalty to a president who is trying to subvert the Constitution and remain in office despite losing the election.
But Navarro has his own definition ― and then went even further in his attack on Pence, calling him a traitor.
“So by the time Jan. 6 rolled around, Pence’s actions were kind of baked into the cake based on both traitorous activity with respect to the president and flawed legal opinions,” he said:
Navarro earlier this year also called Pence a “traitor” and compared him to a character in “Julius Caesar.”
“It was a tragedy that Mike Pence decided to be a traitor to the American Caesar of Trump,” he said in March on Newsmax, according to Salon. “I liken it in [my book] to a Shakespearean moment, the ‘Et tu, Brute?’ moment.”
Now Navarro’s taking a step further and accusing Pence of treason ― to Trump and “perhaps” the nation ― left his critics aghast on Twitter: