Ex-Trump campaign adviser says he will refuse to comply with Mueller subpoena

Former Trump campaign adviser Sam Nunberg said Monday that he won’t comply with a subpoena to appear before the grand jury in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

“When I got the subpoena it was ridiculous to me. Why should I hand them over every email I’ve had with Steve Bannon or Roger Stone since November. Since November of 2015?” Nunberg said during an interview on MSNBC.

Nunberg told The Washington Post that he was summoned to appear before the grand jury on Friday and also received a two-page subpoena for documents tied to President Trump and nine others.

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“Let him arrest me,” Nunberg told the Post. “Mr. Mueller should understand I am not going in on Friday.”

He also said he was planning on appearing on Bloomberg TV to tear up the subpoena.

“I think it would be funny if they arrested me,” Nunberg said on MSNBC. “I think it would be really really funny if they wanted to arrest me because I don’t want to spend 80 hours going over emails with Steve Bannon and Roger Stone.”

MSNBC’s Katy Tur pressed Nunberg on if anyone from the Trump administration reached out to him and told him not to appear before the grand jury. Nunberg said he made the decision on his own. 

Nunberg was an early member of the Trump campaign team, but was fired in 2015 after racist social media posts emerged. Trump later sued him for allegedly violating a confidentiality agreement.

Nunberg said he’s “not a fan” of Trump, adding that the president treated treated him “very badly” during the campaign.

“But here, when I get a subpoena like this, [Trump] is right. It’s a witch hunt,” he said. 

Nunberg has previously admitted to making up a story about his time on the Trump campaign. He admitted in November that he fabricated a story about then-New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) picking up McDonald’s for then-candidate Trump in order to embarrass Christie.

The false anecdote was reported in The New Yorker and quickly spread. Christie’s office had denied the episode.

Asked on MSNBC whether he believes Mueller’s team has any information to indicate Trump did something illegal, Nunberg said, “I think they may.”

He said he believes that because of “the way that they asked questions about anything I heard after I was fired from the campaign.”

“It insinuated to me that he may have done something,” Nunberg said.

Updated at 3:18 p.m.