Ex-aide defiant

‘Let him arrest me,’ Nunberg says during interview with media

Former Trump campaign aide Sam Nunberg publicly defies the Justice Department special counsel’s subpoena: “Let him arrest me.”

WASHINGTON — Former Trump campaign aide Sam Nunberg publicly defied the Justice Department special counsel Monday, announcing in an extraordinary series of media interviews that he had been subpoenaed to appear in front of a federal grand jury investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election but that he will refuse to go.

“Let him arrest me,” Nunberg told the Washington Post in his first stop on a media blitz, saying he does not plan to comply with a subpoena from special counsel Robert Mueller to hand over emails and other documents related to President Donald Trump and nine other current and former Trump advisers.

“Mr. Mueller should understand I am not going in on Friday” to the grand jury, he added.

It is unclear what actions Mueller might take if Nunberg does not appear.

In a remarkable act of rebellion, Nunberg seized the national media spotlight for much of Monday afternoon to denounce Mueller’s investigation as a “witch hunt” and to detail what he said he had learned about the probe from his private interview last month with Mueller’s team. Nunberg advised Trump in the run-up to the campaign but was fired in 2015.

Nunberg also called in live to MSNBC and CNN for lengthy phone interviews.

Nunberg said repeatedly he believes Mueller is trying to build a case that Trump was “the Manchurian candidate.” He said he suspects Mueller has concluded Trump “may have done something” based on the questions he was asked by the special counsel’s team.

The line of questioning, Nunberg told MSNBC anchor Katy Tur, “insinuated to me that (Trump) may have done something, and he may very well have.” He added, “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 said the special counsel had sought to convince him to testify against another former Trump adviser, Roger Stone, for colluding with Russians, but he said he would not because Stone has been a friend and mentor to him.

He complained to the Post that Trump had treated him, as well as Stone and others, terribly and would eventually regret it.

In one of his CNN interviews, he said Trump sometimes acted like “an idiot,” noting that he met last year with Russian leaders inside the Oval Office, where he shared classified intelligence.

Refusing to comply with a subpoena from the special counsel could have real consequences. Susan McDougal, a former business partner of Bill Clinton, spent 18 months behind bars for civil contempt after she refused to testify before a grand jury investigating the Whitewater real estate controversy.

At the White House, officials quickly sought to distance the administration from Nunberg, who was fired in August 2015 over racially insensitive Facebook posts.

Aides in the West Wing watched Nunberg’s television interviews closely, voicing frustration that he had thrust Russia back into the headlines and laughing over what they considered Nunberg’s lack of discipline.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders played down Nunberg’s importance.