At the end of an appellate hearing Thursday in Washington, D.C., a judge told Peter Navarro’s lawyer that she would normally offer him a chance for a rebuttal argument — but, the judge noted, “there’s nothing to rebut.”

“Yes,” Navarro’s lawyer Stanley Brand replied, “that’s been a very strange journey on that front.”

The exchange alluded to the fact that Navarro was the only party presenting arguments at the hearing over his challenge to his contempt of Congress conviction, which he received for not complying with a House Jan. 6 committee subpoena. He was prosecuted during the Biden administration but, under Donald Trump’s administration, the Justice Department told the appeals court that it “is no longer taking the same position as the prior administration in this case.”

In its motion to strike its prior position, the DOJ suggested the D.C. federal appeals court appoint a third party to defend the conviction. But the court declined to do that, leaving only Navarro’s lawyer in court on Thursday.

Despite the lack of opposition, Brand had a tough time before the three-judge panel, which sounded ready to rule against him. On the panel were Judges Patricia Millett, Cornelia Pillard and J. Michelle Childs (Millett and Pillard are Obama appointees and Childs is a Biden appointee).

Yet even if Navarro loses this round of litigation, his legal journey is likely to continue toward the Supreme Court. He’s pressing the appeal after having already served his prison sentence, which he tried to avoid while he was appealing but the justices refused to save him last year.