Peter Navarro, the former trade adviser to then-President Trump, was greeted with enthusiastic cheers at the Republican National Convention hours after his release from prison, The Associated Press reports. He shifted the focus to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack, a topic that had been largely sidestepped during the event. Navarro left a Miami prison in the morning, completing a four-month sentence for refusing to cooperate with a congressional investigation into the attack by a mob of Trump’s supporters trying to stop the certification of his loss to Joe Biden. He then took a flight to Milwaukee. Navarro attacked the committee that led the investigation and cast his time in prison as a sign of loyalty to Trump. His remarks were the first extended mention of the Capitol riot during the first three days of the RNC after programming that has been heavily focused on the economy, national security and immigration.
Navarro spoke for more than 10 minutes – one of the longest speeches yet -- about what he called the “lawfare jackals” he blamed for locking him up. The scene was the sort of spectacle common at Trump rallies, where the presidential nominee routinely calls those convicted of crimes on Jan. 6 “hostages.” There hadn’t been a similar moment at the convention, which has so far largely avoided talk about Trump’s push to overturn his 2020 loss. Navarro said he was just one example of the Biden administration’s use of the judiciary to punish its political enemies. Despite his echo of a common GOP refrain that the Biden administration has “weaponized” the judicial system to punish Trump and his allies, Navarro said he planned to offer a message of unity, a common theme among Republicans in light of the assassination attempt on the former president Saturday and was going to "reach out to Democrats disenchanted with the radical left.” Navarro said Democrats are a potentially receptive voting bloc for Trump.