One of Donald Trump's most high-profile aides is involved in a bitter divorce battle that has dragged on for 18 months and is still unresolved, DailyMail.com can disclose.
Peter Navarro, 70, has become one of the White House's most prominent spokespeople, first over trade with China, and now as point man for procurement of essential supplies to deal with the coronavirus crisis.
But behind the scenes, he has been wrangling over a divorce deal with his estranged wife Leslie LeBon, 59, since November 2018.
Architect LeBon filed for divorce citing 'irreconcilable differences' and asking for spousal support two years after Navarro relocated to Washington D.C from Orange County, California, to join the White House, initially as Director of the White House National Trade Council.
Since then Navarro has lodged his own demand that she pay him alimony on top of his $183,000-a-year official salary, which has increased since his promotion to advisor to the President in February 2018.
President Donald Trump's aide Peter Navarro, 70, has been involved in a bitter divorce battle with his wife Leslie LeBon, 59, since November 2018
Navarro has become a prominent spokesperson in the White House, raising eyebrows last month when he said that his PhD in social sciences allowed him to weigh in on potential COVID-19 cures
The pair are also warring over property and jointly own a four-bedroom Craftsman-style 'mini estate' home in upscale Laguna Beach, California, where LeBon still lives.
The 3,323sqft property has been listed for sale since February 2019 – initially with an asking price of $3.8million but that has since dropped twice to $3.3million.
According to the listing, the home boasts Pacific views 'from almost every room', a separate guesthouse, a firepit and a garage that contains a separate studio.
A furious LeBon told DailyMail.com that she would not be commenting on the case or on her estranged husband – insisting that her divorce is her business.
But when asked about Navarro's negotiating skills, the 59-year-old couldn't resist a crack, snapping, 'Tell him to do a better job' before storming inside.
She would not discuss the reasons for the split.
DailyMail.com contacted both Navarro and the White House for comment and has received no response.
The divorce is a far cry from the pair's previous life as a Laguna Beach power couple with both LeBon and Navarro known for dabbling in local politics – Republican for her and Democrat for him.
They also used the local press to boost their profiles, with LeBon posing for a glossy photo shoot for Laguna Beach Magazine in October 2012 where she spoke of life with the Navarro, then a professor of economics and public policy at the University of California Irvine, and their six cats - Bob, Jack, Luna, Nike, Pumpkin and Shadow.
The couple also shared the home with LeBon's son Alexander, now a 27-year-old professional sand sculptor and sales engineer, from her first marriage to Greg LeBon.
The pair are warring over a four-bedroom Craftsman-style 'mini estate' home in upscale Laguna Beach, California, where LeBon still lives
LeBon previously gushed about her love for antiques – boasting that the couple had surrounded their pool with ancient statues and pottery
The 3,323sqft property has been listed for sale since February 2019 - initially with an asking price of $3.8million and dropping to $3.3million
When the pair married in 2001, Navarro was still working in academia at UC Irvine and had yet to write his best-known work – 2011's Death By China.
The pair were once a power couple, with both LeBon and Navarro known for dabbling in local politics
Instead, he was best known for his attempts to break into politics in San Diego – 70 miles away – where he ran for office on a liberal Democratic ticket five times between 1992 and 2001.
One campaign, in 1992, was for Mayor of San Diego while another was a 1996 run for Congress, which he lost to Republican Brian Bilbray.
His final attempt was in 2001, when he unsuccessfully ran for a council seat, also in San Diego and again as a Democrat.
Despite LeBon's Republican registration, Navarro continued to support Democratic politics, championing Hilary Clinton during her first bid for president in 2008.
But he went all-in on backing Trump after Jared Kushner discovered his book, Death by China, on Amazon.com and got in touch with ask him to advise the campaign.
In his last year in private life he earned $240,000 from University of California-Irvine, with less than $1,000 in royalties from Death by China, and also had speaking fees from the Casket and Funeral Supply Association and other groups.
He did not register as a Republican until June 2018, well after Trump was elected and after 18 months in the White House.
LeBon, who runs her own architectural firm from the former family home, also has a history of dabbling in politics, in her case locally in Laguna Beach.
Her political involvement was supported by Navarro, including in 2010 when he – now a pugilistic media performer - came out swinging for his wife after she was ousted from the city's Design Review Board (DRB).
The board, which vets proposed developments, changed its voting rules, leading to LeBon being ejected.
Navarro immediately demanded a review of the process and filed an official complaint – all, he claimed, without his wife's 'knowledge or consent'.
A furious LeBon told DailyMail.com that she would not be commenting on the case or on her estranged husband – insisting that her divorce is her business. DailyMail.com spotted her out at a farmers market in Laguna Beach
When asked about Navarro's negotiating skills, the 59-year-old couldn't resist a crack, snapping, 'Tell him to do a better job' before storming inside
LeBon runs her own architectural firm from the former family home and also has a history of getting into politics locally in Laguna Beach
The 70-year-old, who raised eyebrows last month when he said that his PhD in social sciences allowed him to weigh in on potential COVID-19 cures, made much of his 'expertise' in public policy.
Speaking to the Laguna Beach Independent in 2010, he went on: 'I did this without either her knowledge or consent. It's a much bigger issue than that.
'I basically am involved in the public policy process, whether it's local politics or whether it's at the federal level, policy is my area of expertise.
'Policy here in the city of Laguna Beach is now in jeopardy because of the politicization of the DRB process.'
His complaint was rejected and LeBon was not reinstated.
Despite the setback, LeBon continued to pursue a profile in the city, posing at her $3million home for Laguna Beach Magazine in October 2012.
According to the listing, the home boasts Pacific views 'from almost every room' and has a separate guesthouse
Along with revealing their menagerie of six cats, she also gushed about her love for antiques – boasting that the couple had surrounded their pool with ancient statues and pottery.
Three years later, she was back in the spotlight when she worked as campaign manager for Republican Steve Dicterow in his bid to be elected mayor of Laguna Beach for the fourth time in 2015.
Dicterow, 66, went on to be elected to a term on the city council – his fifth – in October 2016 but was accused of financial impropriety during the campaign.
Opponents said he had failed to be transparent about campaign finances and accused him of 'conflicts of interest'.
He denied wrongdoing and later claimed the accusations were an attempt to destroy his reputation in a Twitter rant.
MEET 'RON' NAVARRO, THE ECONOMIST JARED FOUND ON AMAZON - AND WHO HAD A FAKE CHARACTER IN HIS BOOKS
Peter Navarro is, like many of Donald Trump's advisers, not from conventional government fields. But he may be the only one found by Jared Kushner when the-then candidate's son-in-law was browsing Amazon.
Navarro had a long-time career as a minor Californian academic at U.C. Davis with a string of books to his name, many attacking China's role in the world economy.
He was a notably liberal Democrat, running five times for offices including mayor of San Diego, and losing each time.
At the same time he became increasingly hawkish on China, in first academic papers, then in books.
But in 2011 his Death by China book was made into a movie voiced by Martin Sheen, and it changed his political positioning, moving him into the Tea Party sphere of anti-free traders who were then on the very fringes of Republican thought.
Perhaps he did not mention his previous support for wind energy, low-energy lightbulbs and carbon taxes.
But five years later his new position in the fringe-conservative world was to prove an advantage.
Man in the middle: Trade adviser Peter Navarro, who Jared Kushner found on Amazon, has confronted Dr. Tony Fauci, the nation's leading epidemiologist, on the use of a drug pushed by Donald Trump to 'cure' coronavirus
California lifestyle: Peter Navarro ditched his ultra-liberal beliefs, but brings a touch of sunshine to Washington D.C. by regularly cycling to work in the White House
As the Trump campaign looked to find people who backed the president's 'America First' agenda, Kushner was browsing Amazon when he stumbled across the book Death by China.
In its author Kushner found a man happy to back the Trump agenda, and talk it up in aggressive terms on television.
Navarro had espoused isolationism, framing trade as a national security issue and simply leaving NAFTA for some years, although it was a re-framing of his academic career (which also included courses on person finances); the PhD he boasted about in the wake of his row with Dr. Tony Fauci was in fact about energy regulation.
He went into battle for Trump, whom he is not known to have met in any form before the campaign, writing an 'economic analysis' with Wilbur Ross - now the commerce secretary and a long-time Wall Street investor with bogus claims to be a billionaire - in favor of Trump's agenda in the weeks before the 2016 election.
He accused opponents who called it 'an immediate an unmitigated disaster' and 'phony numbers' of simply being opposed to Trump.
Entering government as a trade advisor - a position not subject to Senate confirmation - he has proven a reliable, if thin-skinned, warrior for Trump on television.
In particular he has spoken up for tariffs, denying repeatedly that they are bad for the U.S. economy, and trying to offer cover to the president's claim that they are not paid by U.S. purchasers but by foreign importers, which is derided as untrue by economists.
Affable on air if difficult to pin down and prone to filibustering, there have been whispers of clashes off-air over questions he dislikes.
But his high profile earned him the sort of scrutiny his books - hardly bestsellers - had not gained before.
Curiously, an Australian academic discovered, five of them included a character who was reliably anti-Chinese: Ron Vara.
'You've got to be nuts to eat Chinese food,' said 'Ron,' in one of his appearances, setting a broadly anti-Chinese tone. 'Ron' was a Gulf War veteran turned businessman in China.
Strangely, there was no real 'Ron Vara'; in fact it was an anagram of Peter Navarro's surname.
The views were same, but the military service was not: Navarro, now 70, was not drafted and appears to have benefited from college deferrals; after graduating he joined the Peace Corps and was a member when the draft for Vietnam was abolished.
Navarro tried to laugh off his fake character as a 'literary device' and a 'joke' despite his books not being fiction, and compared himself to Alfred Hitchcock making cameos in his own movies.
Death in China's publisher had to add a note to future editions that it included a fake character; a co-author of one book said he had no idea that Navarro had used such a device.
Amazingly, 'Ron' made a re-appearance in a memo sent round Washington from his 'own' email address late last year, raising questions over whether his 'thoughts' were subject to records acts and freedom of information laws.
Navarro has recently gained a greater spotlight through a slightly uncertain role co-ordinating supplies of vital medical equipment - a role he appears to share with Kushner and possibly a three-star Navy admiral - at the same time as pushing for legislation to force manufacturing of such equipment in the U.S.
Never shy to praise his boss, he has substituted 'Trump time' for the plain English of 'quickly,' and repeatedly blamed the Obama administration for the lack of equipment, even though the Trump administration has been in power three years.
He has used a string of TV appearances to boast of 'successes' in tackling the pandemic, but is not in fact a member of the coronavirus task force, although he has increasingly appeared at their meetings - which was where he tried to confront Dr. Fauci over hydroxychloroquine.
That culminated in his boast about his PhD which apparently qualified him to 'look at statistics' on medicine, and to claim 'doctors disagree all the time.'
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