Sam Nunberg was among the first to flock to Donald Trump’s banner, becoming one of the earliest official advisers to his campaign. The reason his name hasn’t been in the news much lately is because way in the summer of 2015, when Trump still pretended to care about such things, Nunberg was fired for being a vocal and public racist.
Nunberg may not be the only person to have received a subpoena asking for his emails, but he’s certainly one recipient—and his response is extraordinary. In a conversation with Katy Tur on MSNBC, Nunberg declared his utter refusal to obey the subpoena.
"Trump's right, it's a witch hunt. I'm not going to cooperate."
“I'm not going to go over my emails because a bunch of FBI agents and a bunch of US attorneys want to harass me."
Understand that Nunberg isn’t applying some misdirected form of executive privilege. He’s not saying he’s going to take the Fifth. He’s saying he will refuse to comply with his subpoena, and threatened to tear it up. Previously, Nunberg had made statements saying that he thought the Russian investigation was a legitimate inquiry, that Mueller’s team was “incredibly smart,” and that the “taxpayers are getting their money’s worth.” But on Monday, that had changed radically.
"Why should I have to hand over every email to Steve Bannon or Roger Stone since November?"
Nunberg repeatedly stated that he was not willing to go through this emails for his conversations with Bannon and Stone—who he called “his mentor”—and among a spray of other eye-popping statements, said he thought “it would be funny” if Mueller had him arrested.
"I'm not interested in handing all my emails over. ...”
“What do you think Mueller is going to do to me?”
Based on what’s happened with witnesses who have lied to Mueller, there would seem to be a pretty good suspicion of what happens next.
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During his his overheated, jaw-dropping rant, Nunberg at least twice said he thought that Trump may have actually done something wrong in connection with the Russians.
Katy Tur: "Do you think that they have something on the president?"
Nunberg: "I think they may. I think that he may have done something during the election." …
“Trump may have well done something during the election.”
Nunberg also told the Washington Post that he would tear up his subpoena on live TV.
“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.
Nunberg repeatedly stated that he thought it was “ridiculous” that Mueller would ask for his communications with Steve Bannon and Roger Stone, and said he wouldn’t give Mueller anything that “made Roger look bad.” He also complained that if Trump had kept Nunberg and Stone on the campaign, it would have been much stronger, including such classy moves as …
"We would have had Bill Clinton's illegitimate black child there at the second debate."
He also repeatedly stated that it was Hillary Clinton’s fault that “her emails were hacked”—which never happened.
"She should have protected her emails. You think Russia is the only one who hacked her emails? Do you think that China didn't, that India didn't, that Israel didn't."
Clinton’s emails were never hacked, by the Russians or anyone else.
During the conversation, Nunberg denied he had any post-campaign conversations with Cory Lewandowski, or that Lewandowski was responsible for his leaving the campaign. Which ignores the real reason Nunberg was canned.
Sam Nunberg, one of Trump's political advisers, has a personal Facebook page that features notes he's posted since 2007.
These updates, which are riddled with grammatical and spelling errors, contain many racially charged statements including one instance on August 25, 2007, where Nunberg wrote about calling Rev. Al Sharpton's daughter "N---!"
When Business Insider turned up Nunberg’s history of racist statements, the Trump campaign said they would move quickly.
A spokesperson for the Trump campaign told Business Insider that Nunberg would be "terminated immediately" when they verified he posted the comments on Facebook.
And of course ...
They also described Nunberg as a "low-level" staffer.
Mueller’s subpoena for Nunberg matches the description given earlier of a subpoena given to “a witness”
He also provided The Washington Post 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.”
However, it’s not clear if Nunberg was the only person to receive such a subpoena.
In all of his illogical, angry, disorganized shouts at Katy Tur, Nunberg did have one statement that seems completely logical.
"I think my lawyer's going to dump me."
Next move, Mueller.