The US House of Representatives voted Wednesday to prosecute two associates of former US President Donald Trump. They are accused of involvement in the storming of the Capitol last year.
These are Peter Navarro and Daniel Scavino, who at the time served as a trade adviser and deputy chief of staff for the president. They have been refusing to testify for months before the parliamentary committee investigating the storming of the US parliament building, which took place on January 6 last year. Shortly before the storm, Trump had called on his supporters during a speech in Washington DC, within walking distance of the Capitol, to do something about the electoral fraud he said had been committed. No evidence has ever been found for this fraud.
Scavino is said to have been with Trump the night before the storm, where he took part in a conversation about the election results. Trump and his cronies wanted to try to prevent Congress from ratifying the election result that declared Joe Biden the winner.
The House voted by 220 votes to 203 to prosecute the pair, with only two Republicans joining Democrats. Scavino and Navarro should be “held accountable for disregarding the law,” Bennie Thompson, the Democratic chair of the inquiry. It is ultimately up to the Ministry of Justice whether the two will actually be prosecuted for contempt of parliament.
At the end of last year, the House already voted to prosecute former Trump aides Mark Meadows and Steve Bannon. Only Bannon is currently being prosecuted, with his case set to serve later this year. Meadows eventually handed over a stack of documents related to the communications he had with Trump and other party members.
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