Sam Nunberg insisted that Robert Mueller (pictured) would not follow through with any civil charges against him, even if he didn’t cooperate. | J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo Ex-Trump aide defies Mueller, risks jail Sam Nunberg insists Donald Trump didn't collude with the Kremlin, but also suggests that special counsel Robert Mueller "has something" on the president.

For months, a parade of witnesses summoned by special counsel Robert Mueller has dutifully agreed to testify as part of Mueller’s investigation into Russian election interference.

Until Sam Nunberg went rogue.


The former presidential campaign adviser to President Donald Trump publicly defied Mueller on Monday, announcing in a series of increasingly bizarre media interviews that he would ignore a grand jury subpoena from the special prosecutor — and even daring Mueller to put him in handcuffs.

Nunberg also suggested that his former boss faces legal jeopardy, telling CNN that Mueller “has enough” on the president and doesn’t need his testimony. “Let him arrest me,” Nunberg told the Washington Post.

But in an interview with POLITICO, Nunberg offered a backhanded defense of his former boss, suggesting that if Trump had colluded with the Kremlin, his secret would be known by now.

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The reason? “Trump can’t keep his fucking mouth shut,” Nunberg said.

It was a head-scratching turn of events, particularly given that Nunberg appears to be a relatively minor figure in the Russia saga. Trump fired Nunberg — a self-described protégé of political operative Roger Stone — in August 2015 after the disclosure of racially offensive Facebook posts he had written. That means Nunberg was not working for Trump for most of the time period Mueller is known to be studying. And Nunberg himself has no apparent close ties to Moscow, unlike many other Trump associates swept up in Mueller’s probe.

Adding a surreal touch to Nunburg's headline-grabbing day was the suggestion of one CNN interviewer, live on the air, that he was under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

During a prime-time appearance that capped a whirlwind media tour over the previous several hours, CNN host Erin Burnett pressed Nunberg on his sobriety. “Talking to you, I smell alcohol,” said the anchor, seated next to him in a CNN studio.

“I haven’t had a drink,” Nunberg replied.

“Anything else?” she asked. “No, besides my meds. Anti-depressants. Is that okay?”

Some Trump allies struggled to discern any strategy behind Nunberg’s defiance of Mueller, whom he told CNN earlier in the day he had been “warned” not to cross.

“These are exactly the same kind of personality traits that led him to be separated from the campaign,” said former Trump campaign adviser Barry Bennett. “He’s got a history of this kind of stuff, unfortunately. I don’t think this is going to end well.

In numerous interviews on Monday afternoon — several carried live on cable news — Nunberg suggested he did not want to incriminate his friends, Stone and former Trump political strategist Steve Bannon. “He doesn't need me giving him information on Steve Bannon and Roger Stone,” Nunberg told CNN.

“Roger is my mentor. Roger is like family to me. I’m not going to do it,” Nunberg told MSNBC.

In a later interview with MSNBC, Nunberg seemed to further complicate the picture, saying that he and Bannon agreed in a conversation last week that Trump may have “done something” that makes the president legally vulnerable. “I don’t know what it is,” Nunberg said. “I could be wrong.”

That admission prompted California Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu to reply on Twitter: “Dear Sam Nunberg: What you just said on national TV is one reason Special Counsel Mueller would like to see your communications with Steve Bannon. Get it?”

Nunberg in his interviews also outed himself as the source of a Mueller subpoena whose details surfaced in media reports over the weekend. The subpoena demanded all communications Nunberg has had with Trump and nine other campaign aides dating back to November 2015, including former campaign chiefs Corey Lewandowski, Paul Manafort and Bannon.

Nunberg also disobeyed requests from Mueller’s investigators to avoid publicly discussing his five-plus hour interview with Mueller’s team in Washington last month.

Nunberg told MSNBC he was asked whether Trump took policy positions during the campaign because of his private business dealings. “I will tell you he never told me that,” Nunberg replied.

And he called “ridiculous” a question about whether he had ever heard anyone speak Russian in Trump’s office.

Nunberg also told MSNBC that his interview with Mueller’s team gave him the impression the special counsel has “something” on the president.

During her daily briefing on Monday, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders called that assertion “incorrect” and denied any collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. Sanders said she wouldn’t comment on “somebody that doesn't work at the White House” and added: “We are fully cooperating with the office of the special counsel.”

On CNN, Nunberg speculated that the grand jury appearance he plans to skip on Friday was arranged in part so he could be asked about what he’s heard from senior Trump associates involving Trump’s attendance in 2013 at the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow.

Nunberg said he’s spoken with Trump’s longtime security guard Keith Schiller about that Trump visit — specifically including what Nunbeg calls an offer by Trump’s Russian partners in staging the pageant to send prostitutes to his hotel room.

“Trump flat out refused it,” Nunberg said. “I can tell you that Trump is too smart to have women come up to his room.”

Scott Balber, an attorney for Russia real estate mogul Aras Agalarov, a Trump friend who owns the venue where the Miss Universe pageant was held, called the allegation about prostitutes “absolutely false and ridiculous.”

A Mueller spokesman declined to comment.

Disobeying a grand jury subpoena is considered civil contempt and can be the basis for arrest, and prosecutors typically respond with a motion asking the court to hold the witness in contempt.

Legal experts pointed to the precedent of Susan McDougal, a former Arkansas business partner of President Bill Clinton who spent 18 months in prison in the 1990s for civil contempt after refusing to testify to a grand jury investigating his Whitewater real estate deals.

Nunberg also said another reason he’d skip the special counsel’s grand jury summons were concerns Mueller wanted him to “insinuate” that Stone had colluded with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange over stolen Democratic emails that leaked during key moments of the 2016 campaign.

“If they’re trying to build a case against Roger I’m not going to be a part of it,” Nunberg said during a second MSNBC appearace later Monday. “Roger didn’t do anything except get treated like crap by Donald Trump.”

In an interview Monday with POLITICO prior to Nunberg’s comments, Stone attorney Robert Buschel said, “Roger Stone has been an adviser and friend to Donald Trump for decades and we’d expect that the Mueller team would ask for all correspondence relating to Roger’s early campaign activities. But Roger Stone has done absolutely nothing inappropriate.”

Buschel added that Stone has not been contacted by Mueller’s office.

Nunberg, who advised Trump for several years before the Manhattan mogul launched his 2016 bid, was among Trump’s earliest campaign advisers. But Nunberg lasted less than three months on Trump’s campaign staff. Trump went on to sue Nunberg for $10 million for breaching a confidentiality agreement. (The case was later settled.)

Nunberg on Monday said that he expected that his attorney, Patrick Brackley, who accompanied him to his interview last month with Mueller, would drop him as a client in light of his public statements. Brackley on Monday did not respond to requests by POLITICO for comment.

Nunberg also has ties to one of Trump’s personal attorneys, Jay Sekulow, who he credits with helping him get his start in campaign politics. Nunberg was working as a volunteer for Mitt Romney’s 2008 presidential campaign when he first met Sekulow, who also is the chief counsel of the non-profit American Center for Law & Justice. Sekulow hired Nunberg to work in ACLJ’s New York office to help stop the construction of a mosque near the World Trade Center site.

Sekulow, who declined a request to comment about Nunberg, has taken a notably combative attitude towards the federal probe into Trump’s alleged Russia ties.

By evening Nunberg showed signs of softening his defiance. While he had ignored what he said was a 3 p.m. deadline to comply with the subpoena, he said he’d consider giving investigators his email user name and password and letting them sift through his inbox. “I have no problem with giving the emails,” he said.

Nunberg said his opposition centered more around him having to do the work himself sifting through his account finding all the relevant messages. “I emailed with Bannon and Stone 30 times a day,” he said.

He added that he had not consulted with his lawyer before conducting multiple media interviews. “I tried to contact him but he didn’t call me back,” he said.

Earlier Nunberg had insisted that Mueller would not follow through with any civil charges against him, even if he didn’t cooperate. “I’m not going to jail,” he said on MSNBC during his early evening interview. “Do you think I’m going to jail?”

Some legal experts told POLITICO the answer could be yes.

“I can confidently say he is not following any lawyer’s advice,” said former federal prosecutor Patrick Cotter, who added that Mueller may well charge and jail him.

“Bonus: Nice photo of Nunberg in cuffs to inspire future witnesses,” Cotter said.

Kyle Cheney contributed reporting.