Sam Nunberg, a former Trump aide recently subpoenaed by the Mueller probe, said Monday he would refuse to testify before the special counsel’s grand jury or turn over requested communications with other members of the Trump campaign.
“They want me to go in this Friday,” Nunberg, an associate of former Trump adviser Roger Stone, said on MSNBC Monday. “And they want me to go in and they want me to testify against my mentor who did nothing.” “I’m not cooperating,” Nunberg said. “Arrest me.”
Nunberg, who has been interviewed by the special counsel before, then said that he thought Mueller might “have something” on President Trump.
“I think he may have done something during the election, but I don’t know that for sure,” Nunberg said. “I can’t explain it unless you were in there.”
He later reiterated the point: “Steve Bannon, I spoke to Steve Bannon for the first time last week after I went in there … and Steve and I were discussing about how we both feel, Katy, like I’m telling you, that Trump may have very well done something during the election. I don’t know what it is. I could be wrong, by the way.”
Nunberg’s MSNBC remarks were part of a remarkable media spree the former Trump staffer embarked upon Monday afternoon, which also included giving interviews to CNN and the Washington Post. Nunberg, who has been out of the spotlight since he was fired from the Trump campaign in the summer of 2015 over racially charged Facebook posts, became a person of interest again after Axios reported the existence of a new Mueller subpoena Sunday. Several outlets correctly deduced the subpoena was for Nunberg.
During his MSNBC interview, Nunberg said he was refusing to cooperate with the Mueller investigation because investigators were asking for too many of his private communications.
“Why do I have to spend 80 hours going over my e-mails that I’ve had with Steve Bannon and with Roger Stone? Why does Bob Mueller need to see my emails when I send Roger and Steve clips and we talk about how much we hate people?” Nunberg said. “Maybe people should start snubbing their nose at it, because the way they are asking for communications that I had with Steve Bannon, with Roger Stone, to me is too much.”
“I think Mueller has enough on Trump, he doesn’t need me to start giving him information on Roger Stone and Steve Bannon,” Nunberg said on CNN. “They know something on him. I don’t know what it is, and perhaps I’m wrong. But he did something.”
