A former aide on U.S. President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign said he wasn’t planning on testifying before a grand jury later this week, despite being subpoenaed.
Sam Nunberg told MSNBC on Monday that he thought it would be “really funny” if he was arrested for refusing the subpoena.
After appearing on multiple news shows on Monday afternoon after the Washington Post first reported that he would be refusing the subpoena, Nunberg says he’ll probably end up co-operating with special counsel Robert Mueller after all.
In the interviews, Nunberg said he believes the president probably knew about the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between his eldest son, top campaign staff and a team of Russians, which Trump has denied. And he blamed Trump for the investigation into Russia meddling, telling MSNBC that he was “responsible for this investigation … because he was so stupid.”
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Nunberg said he had already been interviewed by Mueller’s team, which is investigating Russian collusion with Trump’s campaign during 2016.
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The former aide left Trump’s campaign in the summer of 2015, when racist Facebook posts on his account from the past were dug up, Politico reports. He then supported Ted Cruz’s campaign for the Republican nomination.
Trump then went on to sue Nunberg after alleging he leaked confidential information to reporters in violation of a non-disclosure agreement.
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Nunberg repeatedly affirmed his dislike of Trump; he told the Post “there is nobody who hates him more than me,” and MSNBC that he is “not a fan of Donald Trump.”
Despite that, he affirmed to the Post that, “the Russians and Trump did not collude.”
“Donald Trump won this election on his own. He campaigned his ass off,” he said.
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Documents provided by Nunberg show Mueller’s subpoena requests include information and “records of any kind” about other former Trump staffers including Hope Hicks (former communications director), Steve Bannon (White House strategist) and Roger Stone (campaign adviser), the Post reports.
He said the reason he wasn’t going to the grand jury was because what Mueller’s team asked for is “ridiculous.”
“I’m not spending 80 hours going over my emails with Roger Stone and Steve Bannon and producing them,” Nunberg told the paper at the time.
He also told MSNBC that the expansive subpoena proves Trump right.
“When they get a subpoena like this … Mr. Trump’s right, it’s a witch hunt.”
Despite that, Nunberg told MSNBC he got the impression from his interview that they had evidence implicating Trump. But he said he couldn’t say for sure.
“I think they may,” he told MSNBC.
In an interview on CNN, he said he believed Mueller’s team wanted specifics about Stone, but that he wouldn’t talk about him because he was like a mentor.
He also told CNN’s Jake Tapper that he believed former foreign policy adviser for Trump, Carter Page, had been colluding with the Russians. “I think that Carter Page is a weird dude — I don’t think he should have been involved in that campaign,” he said.
WATCH: White House won’t weigh in on ex-Trump aide not testifying
White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders said she wouldn’t weigh in on Nunberg’s decision to refuse the subpoena because he never worked at the White House.
“From our perspective, we are fully co-operating with the office of the special counsel, and we’re going to continue to do so,” Sanders said Monday.
*With files from the Associated Press
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