Nunberg Refusing Mueller Subpoena

News  |  Mar 5, 2018

UPDATE 4: CNN's Erin Burnett interviews Nunberg (his 3rd CNN interview) at 7pm ET during which Nunberg says the network is a joke for hiring Corey Lewandowski. 

He says he has not spoken to Donald Trump since a week before he was sworn in as the president. Nunberg says he is a supporter of the president's, but then a few minutes later says he hates the guy. 

Nunberg says he is thinking about just handing over his email password. He says he does not want to spend the time going through them himself. 

Nunberg says he believes Donald Trump knew about the June 9, 2016 Trump Tower meeting and probably knew in advance because Don Jr. informed him. 

Nunberg tries to pivot his interview to attack Hillary Clinton and says he thinks there are separate rules for Republicans and Democrats. 


UPDATE 3: Sam Nunberg appears on MSNBC in person at 6pm ET for another interview, this time with Ari Melber. 

Nunberg says he believes the subpoena is too broad. 

More from Nunberg: 

Nunberg: They have something on Trump. He did something pretty bad. I think they are interested in something with his business. By the way, I could be wrong. He may not have done anything. 

Something I said to them in that interview, they want it in that grand jury. 

Roger [Stone] did not do anything. I am not going to testify against Roger. Trump is the most disloyal person you'll ever meet.

Corey Lewandowski and Hope Hicks colluded to get Roger and me fired. 

I think Carter Page colluded with the Russians. 


UPDATE 2: Sam Nunberg made a second call to CNN just after 4pm ET, his third call to a news network so far Monday. 

Live on air with Jake Tapper, Nunberg called Trump an idiot. He said he can attack Sarah Sanders back for attacking him during the press briefing today. "I know [Trump] likes her because of her father."

Nunberg said he is not going to the grand jury. He said he is not going to spend 30 hours going over his emails. 

Some short excerpts from the interview with Tapper:

Nunberg: Mueller has enough on Trump, he doesn't need me to start giving him information on Roger Stone and Steve Bannon. I communicated with them 15 times a day.

I am not cooperating. Arrest me. 

My father worked for Trump in the 80s. [The investigators] asked about it. They asked about stuff like that. They know. They know something on [Trump]. I don't know what it is, and perhaps I am wrong. But they have something. If they have him on something, they are smart enough to know, it has to be during the election. 

Trump was so stupid to fire Comey. I've heard that Jared was going around for two months telling him to do that. 

Who the hell advised him to allow those Russians in the Oval Office?

All he had to say was, "We met with the Russians." I don't know why he went around trying to hide it.

Roger is my mentor. I support Roger. We were treated very badly by Trump, but I am not going in there. 

Carter Page is a scumbag. Carter Page was colluding with the Russians. Yes, I believe Carter Page was colluding with the Russians. He wasn't really an advisor. He was a name on a list. They were happy to get anybody they could get. That guy was introduced to the campaign by Corey Lewandowski. 

I don't know anything about George Papadopoulos

I think Carter Page is a weird dude. 

Watch:


UPDATE: Sam Nunberg followed up his call to MSNBC with a call to CNN and spoke with Gloria Borger.

Nunberg: They think Roger Stone colluded with Julian Assange. They want me to testify against Roger. They want me to say that Roger was going around telling people he was colluding with Julian Assange. 

Nunberg says he came up with the wall and the Muslim ban, and then got fired and Stone quit because of the way Trump treated Nunberg. 

Nunberg on having to testify before the grand jury: "Why do I have to go? Why?"

He continued: "I am not a Donald Trump fan. He treated me like crap. But after I sat with them for close to five-and-a-half hours, I am not going back in."

Nunberg: They probably want to know about Miss Universe 2013 if I had to guess. I think ... I think... there was nothing there. Maybe people told them different things than I heard.

Nunberg says he heard Emin Agalarov offered to send women to Trump's room in Moscow during Miss Universe 2013 and he flat out refused it. Nunberg says Keith Schiller told him all this, and this – he believes – could be why Mueller wants him before the grand jury. 

Nunberg: Mueller thinks Trump is the Manchurian Candidate. 

Former Trump aide refusing Mueller subpoena: Trump 'didn't do anything' (CNN)


Sam Nunberg, an early Trump campaign aide fired in August 2015 for having posted racial slurs on Facebook, says he will not cooperate with a grand jury subpeona to turn over all communications pertaining to 10 key Trump campaign officials and associates. NBC News and Axios reported on the subpoena Sunday without identifying Nunberg as their source. 

Washington Post:

In an interview with The Washington Post, Nunberg said he was asked to come to Washington to appear before the grand jury on Friday. He also provided a copy of his two-page grand jury subpoena seeking documents related to President Trump and nine other people, including emails, correspondence, invoices, telephone logs, calendars and “records of any kind.”

(...)

Nunberg said he does not plan to comply with the subpoena, including either testimony or providing documents.

“Let him arrest me,” Nunberg said. “Mr. Mueller should understand I am not going in on Friday.”

Nunberg said he was planning to go on Bloomberg TV and tear up the subpoena.

(...)

“The Russians and Trump did not collude,” Nunberg said. “Putin is too smart to collude with Donald Trump.”

“I’m not spending 80 hours going over my emails with Roger Stone and Steve Bannon and producing them,” Nunberg said. “Donald Trump won this election on his own. He campaigned his ass off. And there is nobody who hates him more than me.”

In a live interview on MSNBC Monday, Nunberg reiterated that he does not want to spend 80 hours going over old emails and calls Special Counsel Robert Mueller's order "ridiculous."

"By the way," he added, "I think my lawyer is going to dump me."

Nunberg said he never heard about Trump Tower Moscow and never heard anyone speaking Russian around Trump Tower, a question investigators allegedly asked. He also called Roger Stone his mentor and insisted Clinton should have protected her emails better. 

"Why do I have to produce all my communications? It's ridiculous," Nunberg continued.

When MSNBC anchor Katy Tur asked if Nunberg is concerned Mueller will hold him in contempt, Nunberg responded, "He is not going to do anything." 

Tur: Did you find an email in the last 24 hours that made you change your mind?

Nunberg: Not at all. 

Tur then asked Nunberg if he got the impression from his meeting with Mueller's investigators that the special counsel has something on the president.

Nunberg: I think they may. I think he may have done something during the election, but I don't know for sure. The way they asked questions about anything I heard after I was fired from the campaign to the general election to even November 1st. It insinuated to me he may have done something.

Tur: If you got a sense, why would you not want to cooperate?

Nunberg: I'm not interested in them insinuating Roger did something bad.

Tur: Has anyone contacted you in the last 24 hours to tell you not to talk to the special counsel? 

Nunberg: I decided a couple hours ago that this was ridiculous. Why do I have to give Robert Mueller all my emails with Steve Bannon and Roger Stone. 

Nuneberg said no one from the White House has contacted him and told him not to comply. He said he spoke to Bannon for the first time last week and that they both feel Trump may have done something during the election, but he doesn't know what it is. 

Nunberg: What do you think Mueller is going to do to me?

Tur: You may be held in contempt of court.

Tur summarized her conversation afterwards with the following thought: Who got to Nunberg in the last 24 hours and convinced him not to cooperate? 

Watch:

Former Trump aide Sam Nunberg called before grand jury, says he will refuse to go (WaPo)

Read the subpoena