Peter Navarro's bid to remain free while appealing his contempt of Congress case is denied by the judge.

On Thursday, a federal judge rejected Peter Navarro's request to remain free from prison while he appeals his conviction for contempt of Congress for refusing to cooperate with an investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Last month, Navarro was given a four-month prison sentence for disregarding a subpoena for documents and a deposition from the House Jan. 6 Committee. Despite this, he requested to remain free while he appeals the conviction and sentence in higher courts.

Unless Washington's federal appeals court intervenes, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta ordered that Navarro must report to serve his sentence when directed by the Bureau of Prisons, as he has not demonstrated that any of the issues he will raise on appeal are "substantial" questions of law.

Navarro claims that his prosecution was driven by political bias, but Mehta counters that Navarro failed to provide any evidence to back up this assertion.

Mehta, appointed to the federal court in Washington by President Barack Obama, wrote that the defendant's cynical and self-serving claim of political bias poses no question, let alone a substantial one.

An attorney representing Navarro did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump invoked executive privilege, preventing Navarro from cooperating with the committee. Despite this, the judge ruled that Navarro could not use this as an argument in trial, as there was no evidence to show that Trump had actually invoked it.

Before receiving his punishment in January, Navarro informed the judge that he believed the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack had accepted his invocation of executive privilege.

Steve Bannon, a former White House adviser, received a four-month sentence for contempt of Congress, while Navarro became the second Trump aide to be convicted of the same charges.

The committee investigating the insurrection spent 18 months examining the incident, interviewing over 1,000 witnesses, holding 10 hearings, and obtaining more than 1 million pages of documents. In its final report, the panel concluded that Trump engaged in a "multi-part conspiracy" to overturn the election results and failed to take action to prevent his supporters from storming the Capitol.

Special counsel Jack Smith has charged Trump, the Republican presidential primary front-runner, with conspiring to overturn his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden. Trump denies any wrongdoing and claims the case is politically motivated.