What Is Sam Nunberg Doing?
Updated on March 6 at 10:36 a.m. ET
When former Trump aide Sam Nunberg called into MSNBC on Monday to declare his intention to defy a grand-jury subpoena in the Russia investigation, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team was almost certainly watching with interest.
“I’m not going to cooperate! Why do I have to spend 80 hours going over my emails that I’ve had with Steve Bannon and with Roger Stone?” Nunberg asked NBC News reporter Katy Tur on Monday afternoon. “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, who was early in the President Trump from allegations of collusion with what U.S. intelligence agencies have called a Russian campaign to swing the 2016 election in Trump’s favor. On MSNBC on Monday, Nunberg repeatedly called the special counsel’s investigation a “witch hunt” and said that there was “no collusion” between the Trump campaign and Russia. Yet defying Mueller’s subpoena could lead to conviction on charges of civil contempt, and then imprisonment. Nunberg, an attorney, said he was willing to go to prison if necessary.
