Sam Nunberg, a former aide to Donald Trump, said Monday that he thinks special counsel Robert Mueller might have something on the president.
When asked whether Mueller’s team might have something on Trump, Nunberg told MSNBC, “I think they may.”
Nunberg’s bombshell came during a media blitz Monday as he told various outlets that he would refuse to comply with Mueller‘s subpoena in the Russia probe.
Nunberg, who was an advisor on Trump’s presidential campaign, told MSNBC that it would be “really funny” if Mueller arrested him for ignoring the grand jury subpoena. Laughing, he said that “my lawyer is about to dump me right now.”
Mueller is investigating possible collusion between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign during the 2016 campaign. The probe has picked up momentum in recent weeks, yielding indictments for 13 Russians accused of waging “information warfare” to swing the election to Trump, and a guilty plea from former top Trump campaign official Rick Gates.
Trump has repeatedly denied allegations of collusion.
Nunberg told MSNBC that Mueller’s team has been asking “did you hear people speaking Russian in the Trump office?” and “did you hear about Trump Tower Moscow?”
He said he had not heard Russian being spoken in the office, calling the question “ridiculous.”
Trump’s company reportedly sought a deal to build a Trump Tower in Moscow while he was running for president. The project never came to fruition.
Nunberg also claimed that Mueller’s team told him “flat-out” that Trump was taking positions on different policies because of his business interests. Nunberg strongly denied that Trump ever said that he made policy decisions based on his businesses.
The MSNBC interview came after the Washington Post published a story that cited Nunberg as saying he would refuse to comply with the subpoena. “Let him arrest me,” Nunberg told the newspaper. “Mr. Mueller should understand I am not going in on Friday.”
Nunberg said that he was refusing the special counsel “because what they sent me was absolutely ridiculous.”
“Should I spend 50 hours going over all my emails with [Trump confidant and longtime political operative Roger Stone] and with Steve Bannon?” Nunberg said in the MSNBC interview, adding that Mueller’s team also asked for communications with former Trump campaign staffers Hope Hicks and Corey Lewandowski. Last week, the White House said Hicks, a longtime close aide to Trump, would be leaving her role as communications director.
Despite being “not a fan of Donald Trump” for the way Nunberg says he treated Stone and others, the former Trump aide said that “when they get a subpoena like this … Mr. Trump’s right, it’s a witch hunt.”
But when asked whether he believed that the special counsel may have something on Trump, Nunberg responded, “I think they may.”
He added: “I think that he may have done something during the election. But I don’t know that for sure.”
Nunberg softened his stance somewhat in a later interview with CNN.
“I suspect that they suspect something about him,” he told the network in an interview. “I can’t explain it unless you were in there … The way they asked about his business dealings, the way they asked if you heard anything even while I was fired. … it just made me suspect that they suspect something about him.”
CNN also asked whether Mueller’s team sought information about plans for a Trump Tower Moscow. “Yes,” Nunberg said.
Later Monday, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that Nunberg is “incorrect” in saying Mueller could have something.
“As we’ve said many times before, there was no collusion with the Trump campaign,” Sanders said. “Anything further on what his actions are, he hasn’t worked at the White House so I certainly can’t speak to him or the lack of knowledge that he clearly has.”
Nunberg worked as a Trump campaign aide until August 2015, when he was fired over racially charged Facebook posts that he allegedly wrote. At the time, Nunberg denied he wrote the posts, which involved the use of racial and religious slurs against then-President Barack Obama and Rev. Al Sharpton.
The White House did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
CNBC’s Christina Wilkie contributed to this report.
