It's been a wild Monday already in The Russian Connection. The New York Times reported that the Trump State Department has been allocated $120 million to fight Russian election meddling and used exactly $0. Then, a New Yorker expose from Jane Mayer shed further light on Christopher Steele, the former MI6 agent, and his now-famous Dossier. But incredibly, both were soon upstaged. First, The Washington Post reported that Sam Nunberg, a Trump aide early in the 2016 campaign before he was forced out, had been subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury by Special Counsel Robert Mueller—and that Nunberg was loudly declaring he would defy the subpoena.

And then, incredibly, Nunberg was on MSNBC, spilling his guts not just about his own subpoena woes, but about his experience being interviewed by Robert Mueller's team and his gut feeling about whether Trump "did something wrong" during the campaign. Throughout, he denied having spoken to anyone who encouraged him not to cooperate—or that he'd found anything in his emails to make him fear handing them over. But he also said, multiple times, that his lawyer would probably drop him for what he was doing right then, on-air.

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There truly is no end to the extraordinary behavior on show from the various villains, incompetents, bewildered neophytes, and absolute nincompoops in Donald Trump's orbit. Nunberg's tour de force evoked the many cable news freak shows from Carter Page, a foreign policy adviser now deeply embroiled in The Russian Connection. Nunberg had an almost unnervingly laissez-faire attitude towards the whole business, starting with his attitude towards a subpoena from a federal prosecutor wielding the full power of the Department of Justice. Nunberg is a lawyer, but he doesn't seem familiar with the whole subpoena concept:

NUNBERG: They wanted every email I had with Roger Stone and Steve Bannon. Why should I hand them emails from November 1, 2015? I was thinking about this today, Katy, I was preparing it. Should I spend 50 hours going over all my emails with Roger and with Steve Bannon?

The reason, as Katy Tur, his interviewer, pointed out, is that you were subpoenaed by the special counsel. That is why you should put in the annoying amount of time to comply—because you will be held in contempt of court otherwise. (More on that later.) Nunberg repeated this line about how costly it would be for him to comply, particularly in terms of time—later he suggested it would be 80 hours, not just 50—throughout. But he always maintained he came to the decision by himself while beginning to sort thorugh his emails. He also said this:

NUNBERG: Roger is my mentor. Roger is like family me to me. I'm not going to do it.

Well doesn't that tell its own story. Frequently, Nunberg would drop into a tone that was strangely cordial with Tur.

NUNBERG: I'm not a fan of Donald Trump, as you well know. Do you know taht?

TUR: You've said it.

NUNBERG: I'm not a fan of his. He treated Roger and me very badly. And he screwed us over during the campaign. But here, when I get a subpoena like this—Roger is right. It's a witch hunt. I mean Mr. Trump's right—it's a witch hunt.

But as Tur reminded him, Nunberg was on MSNBC's airwaves last week suggesting the Russia probe was in no way a waste of time. Something has happened in the interim. The question is whether it has to do with Nunberg's meeting with Robert Mueller, the subpoena, both, or something else, too. But later in the same interview, Nunberg also seemed to suggest Trump may have done something illegal or at least improper—meaning, once again, that there is cause for the probe to continue.

NUNBERG: I think that he may have done something during the election. But I don't know that for sure.

And again:

NUNBERG: I spoke to Steve Bannon for the first time last week after I went in there. I spoke to him and Steve and I were discussing how we both feel, like I'm telling you, that Trump may have done something during the election. I don't know what it is. I could be wrong, by the way.

So the president's former adviser, and his former campaign chair and chief strategist, both think he may have done something wrong? How, again, is this a Witch Hunt? Nunberg sang a similar tune when asked to elaborate on what his interview with Mueller's team was like:

NUNBERG: The way they asked questions about anything I heard after I was fired from the campaign to the general election, to even November 1—it insinuated to me that he may have done something. And he may very well have.

The knee-jerk, contradictory nature of all these responses indicates Nunberg is in a certain frame of mind. He also seemed to find the idea of being thrown in jail for contempt of court...rather amusing.

NUNBERG: I think it would be funny if they arrested me. I think it would be really, really funny.

It's genuinely hard to decipher whether this is a kind of defensive, Trumpian bluster or Nunberg really sees no consequences for refusing to comply with the special counsel. He seemed remarkably forthcoming in other ways, too:

NUNBERG: Donald Trump, when he was involved in conservative politics, did not help his business. Donald Trump did not want to attack Hillary Clinton early on in the campaign. He only wanted to attack Jeb Bush because it was not going to be good for him. And had he not won the primary, he was probably going to endorse Hillary Clinton.

Now that's a line. But Nunberg and Tur seemed to save the best for last. Tur was almost trying to let Nunberg off the line before he engaged in any more self-sabotage, but Nunberg was determined to stay in the limelight. That led to this, after Tur tried to conclude things by declaring the proceedings "remarkable":

NUNBERG: What's remarkable about this, by the way?

TUR: Everything is remarkable, I would say.

NUNBERG: You called me, correct?

Uh, OK.

NUNBERG: What do you think Mueller's going to do to me?

TUR: "I'm not a lawyer, but I think he'll hold you in contempt of court"

Immediately, the Twitterati were suggesting Nunberg would need more than a new lawyer to get back on the rails. It's not hard to see why. Like Carter Page, Nunberg seemed determined to both incriminate himself and continually contradict himself. The main effect, however, was to cement the notion that this is not how a squeaky-clean shop behaves.

And then, after hanging up with Tur, Nunberg went on CNN for an equally insane interview with Jake Tapper:

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BREAKING: Ex-Trump Aide Sam Nunberg just said “Carter Page was colluding with the Russians.” Jake Tapper stopped to make sure he heard Nunberg clearly & Nunberg repeated “yes I believe Carter Page was colluding with the Russians.” #TrumpColluded pic.twitter.com/FREGekRa8u — Scott Dworkin (@funder) March 5, 2018

Jack Holmes Politics Editor Jack Holmes is the Politics Editor at Esquire, where he writes daily and edits the Politics Blog with Charles P Pierce.

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