Ex-Trump aide was DRINKING during wild series of TV interviews

Ex-Trump political aide Sam Nunberg will ‘seek treatment for what ails him’ after cooperating with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, Fox Business Network reported Tuesday. 

In the aftermath of Nunberg’s flurry of television interviews, where he announced he planned to defy a subpoena asking him to appear before a grand jury and turn over campaign emails, Fox Business Network’s Charlie Gasparino confirmed that the aide now plans to play ball. 

Then he’ll go get some help, said Gasparino, who described Nunberg as a ‘friend.’  ‘Drinking I believe is a big part of it and that’s what happened yesterday,’ the Fox Business correspondent said.

That was what CNN’s Erin Burnett guessed as well, saying while on live television with Nunberg that she could smell alcohol on his breath. Nunberg, in turn, was quick to deny that he’d been drinking.  

 Sam Nunberg (pictured) later changed his tune and suggested he would comply with the subpoena, but not before he attacked the White House Press Secretary and suggested that Trump associate Carter Page had ‘colluded’ with the Russians 

One of the most eyebrow raising interviews of Sam Nunberg’s (left) media blitz happened on the CNN show Erin Burnett (right) Out Front 

NOT DRUNK: While CNN’s Erin Burnett (right) confronted Sam Numberg (left) and said she could smell alcohol on his breath, the former Trump aide said he hadn’t had a drink on Monday 

Burnett asked the question as Nunberg made a number of eyebrow-raising statements throughout the marathon’s worth of television and print interviews he gave on Monday. 

On the CNN host’s show, he quickly pounced on White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders calling her a ‘fat slob.’  

Earlier he called the subpoena to appear before a grand jury as part of the Mueller Russia probe ‘ridiculous.’ 

During his first interview, in which he called into MSNBC, he said he had no interest spending hours combing through his emails to top campaign official to assist Mueller’s effort. 

His defiance could have led to contempt of court charges or jail time. 

He said multiple times he doubted he would actually go to jail. 

‘What they send me was absolutely ridiculous. They wanted every email I had with Roger Stone and with Steve Bannon,’ he said, referencing longtime informal adviser Stone and Trump’s former chief White House strategist. ‘Why should I hand them e-mails from November 1, 2015?’ he added, revealing the timeline Mueller imposed.  

‘I was preparing it. Should I spend 50 hours going over all my emails with Roger and with Steve Bannon? And then they wanted emails that I had with [departing White House communications director] Hope Hicks, with [former campaign manager] Corey Lewandowski. Are you giving me a break? It’s ridiculous,’ he said.

He fumed: ‘I’m not going to cooperate when they want me to have – when they want me to come in to a grand jury, for them to insinuate that Roger Stone was colluding with Julian Assange. Roger is my mentor. Roger is like family to me. I’m not going to do it,’ he said it. 

In a series of interview, although he said Trump was not guilty of collusion, Nunberg said Trump may indeed have ‘done something’ – and said one advisor, Carter Page, engaged in ‘collusion’ with the Russians. 

Nunberg was referencing Twitter communications Stone had with WikiLeaks, which released hacked Democratic emails in the weeks before the election.   

He said he spoke to Bannon, who has met with Mueller’s team, recently.

‘By the way, Steve Bannon – I spoke to Steve Bannon for the first time last week after I went in there and the first — and I spoke to him and Steve and I were discussing about how we both feel, Katy, like I’m tell you, that Trump may have very well done something during the election. I don’t know what it is. I could be wrong by the way,’ he said.  

In between his complaints, Nunberg revealed the extent of Mueller’s inquiries, which ranged from all communications he had with Trump’s former campaign manager, press secretary, and former foreign policy advisor Carter Page, who Nunberg said he considered a ‘moron.’

‘They asked for communications with Carter Page. Are you giving me a break? Do you think I would ever talk to that moron?’ Nunberg told CNN. 

He said of Stone: ”Roger quit because he was absolutely disgusted by the way I was treated, okay? I worked for Trump for four and a half years. I came up with the wall, I came up with the Muslim ban, I came up with everything to attack Jeb Bush, all that stuff, okay? Now Trump used it, Trump was the only one who could effectively do it. ‘

Nunberg’s comments seem to comport with an Axios report from Sunday that revealed all the email communications Mueller was seeking from an unnamed official. 

It contained the same names of people as subjects of communications that were of interest.

Judges are not known to recognize the personal preferences of witnesses in deciding if they must appear, nor the inconvenience – however substantial – of complying.  Others who have been sucked into congressional probes of the Russian interference have complained about piling up massive legal bills.

‘They’ve already bankrupted people, Katy,’ Nunberg said to the MSNBC host who covered the campaign. ‘They’ve bankrupted other people with this. You know, [former White House press secretary Sean Spicer has big legal bills. [Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump press aide] Josh Raffel has big legal bills,’ he said.

Nunberg, who got pushed out of the campaign, said Trump did not collude with the Russians. 

‘I’m not a fan of Donald Trump, as you well know,’ he told host Katy Tur. ‘I’m not a fan of his. hH treated Roger and me very badly and he screwed us over during the campaign. But you know, here, when I get a subpoena like this, Roger’s right. It’s a witch hunt – I mean, Mr. Trump’s right, the president’s right. It’s a witch hunt,’ he said.

‘And 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. 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?’ he said.  

‘Donald Trump did not collude with the Russians! It is the biggest joke to ever think Donald Trump colluded with the Russians. I can tell you, Donald Trump, when he was involved in conservative politics, did not halt his business, okay? Donald Trump did not want to attack Hillary Clinton early on in the campaign. He only wanted to attack Jeb Bush, because it wasn’t going to be – it wasn’t going to be good for him, and had he not won the primary, he was probably going to endorse Hillary Clinton,’ Nunberg said. 

He told the Washington Post in a separate interview: ‘The Russians and Trump did not collude. Putin is too smart to collude with Donald Trump.’

Investigators are also interested in longtime Trump advisor Roger Stone’s communications with WikiLeaks and his role advising Trump

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators have been asking witnesses whether Donald Trump knew about the theft of Democratic emails that rocked the 2016 presidential campaign

The Atlantic published newly revealed private Twitter messages between Stone and WikiLeaks, an account thatfounds Julian Assange said is manned by staff.

A person familiar with the line of questioning told NBC investigators wanted to know if Stone had ever met Assange, and whether Stone was in fact working for Trump. 

Stone wrote WikiLeaks Oct. 13, 2016: ‘Since I was all over national TV, cable and print defending wikileaks and assange against the claim that you are Russian agents and debunking the false charges of sexual assault as trumped up bs you may want to rexamine the strategy of attacking me- cordially R.’ 

The Wikileaks account responded, according to screen shots published in the article: ‘We appreciate that. However, the false claims of association are being used by the democrats to undermine the impact of our publications. Don’t go there if you don’t want us to correct you .’

The group also wrote Stone the day after Trump stunned the political world and won the election. ”Happy? We are now more free to communicate,’ said the message. 

Huckabee Sanders got asked about the stunning comments minutes after Nunberg made them.

‘He hasn’t worked at the White House, so I certainly cant speak to him or the lack of knowledge that he clearly has,’ she said.

Nunberg acknowledged his behavior was unorthodox and risky.

And he urged others to join him in defying investigators. 

‘You know, Katy, maybe people should start snubbing their nose at it, because the way they are asking for communications that I had with Steve Bannon, with Roger Stone, to me is too much … They want me to go in and they want me to testify against my mentor who did nothing. He did nothing wrong, Roger, okay?’ he said. 

At one point, Tur asked whether Nunberg believed investigators ‘have something’ on Trump.

‘I think they may,’ he said.

‘I think he may have done something during the election. But I don’t know that for sure,’ he responded.

When pressed, he only said: ‘I can’t explain it unless you were in there.’ 

‘By the way, I think my lawyer is going to dump me right now,’ he said at one point, repeating a sentiment he told to the Washington Post.

Continuing his fast-paced media tour Monday, Nunberg told CNN: ‘When I’m in there and they ask me to go to the grand jury after I sat there for close to five hours, Gloria, I’m not going back in,’ he told host Gloria Borger.

By 4 pm on Monday, Nunberg had yet to have enough, and called in to Jake Tapper’s show on CNN.

‘I despise Corey. Why would I communicate with him? Hope Hicks, who was having an affair with Corey? And I would communicate? I should give them every email from November 1 of 2015 to perpetuity with Steve Bannon and Roger Stone? Why? Why do I have to give that to the government?’ 

‘I am not a fan of Donald Trump. He treated me like crap, okay? He treated Roger like crap,’ Nunberg told Tapper. ‘ 

‘I should not have been fired. Roger should not have been treated the way he did. And Trump decided that he loved Corey more than us. That’s fine. Okay. It’s old business. But the idea that I was colluding with the Russians? That Roger was colluding with the Russians to help Trump? All we were doing was trying to get Corey fired!’ he said.

He also revisited the issue of whether Mueller has obtained information that Trump did something wrong.

‘They know something on him,” Nunberg said. ‘Perhaps I’m wrong, but he did something,’ he said.

Even as he trashed the request for his information, Nunberg said Mueller was an honorable man – and slammed Trump for hosting Russia’s former ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak into the Oval Office. 

‘I shouldn’t have to go back down to a grand jury. I’m spending a lot of money on legal fees. A lot of other people are. And granted, because he decided to give an interview to Lester Holt the day after he fired James Comey, and then he decided to have to have the Russians in the Oval Office. You’ll have to explain that one to me. I’ll never understand it,’ he said. 

He also said he believed Carter Page ‘colluded with the Russians,’ but said he was just a minor figure in the campaign and is a ‘weird dude’ and a ‘scumbag.’