Former Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro was ordered to turn over emails from his time at the White House immediately.
Navarro has undergone an extensive court battle over whether he is obligated to turn over emails he sent through a private account during his time in the Trump administration. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, a Clinton appointee, rejected several different arguments against turning them in in an opinion filed Thursday, Politico reported.
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The judge gave Navarro’s team 30 days to sort out protocol and turn his emails over.
Kollar-Kotelly ruled that Navarro’s emails fell under the jurisdiction of the Presidential Records Act, which requires work-related messages sent from a personal account must be forwarded to an official account within 20 business days.
“Dr. Navarro contends that he has no statutory duties under the PRA. … This position would defeat the entire purpose of the statute, i.e., to ensure that Presidential records, as defined, are collected, maintained and made available to the public,” she wrote.
“The PRA makes plain that Presidential advisors such as Dr. Navarro are part and parcel of the statutory scheme in that they are required to preserve Presidential records during their tenure so that they can be transferred to [the National Archives and Records Administration] at the end of an administration,” she added.
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“All the emails in Dr. Navarro’s personal email account, whether created or received, are therefore subject to being assessed as potential Presidential records if they arose out of his employment in the administration,” she continued.
Navarro is also on trial for two charges over his defiance of a subpoena related to his actions concerning Jan. 6.
