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Former Trump Campaign Aide Balks at Mueller Subpoena

Former Trump campaign aide Sam Nunberg said Monday he will refuse to comply with a subpoena from special counsel Robert Mueller to appear before a grand jury investigating Russia's election meddling. 

WASHINGTON (CN) - Former Trump campaign aide Sam Nunberg said Monday he will refuse to comply with a subpoena from special counsel Robert Mueller to appear before a grand jury investigating Russia's election meddling.

Nunberg told the Washington Post that he has been asked to preserve documents dating back to Nov. 1, 2015, concerning President Trump, along with nine of his close associates, including Hope Hicks, Trump's recently departed communications director.

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

Nunberg also said he wanted to rip up the subpoena on Bloomberg TV.

Nunberg has said he met with Muller's team for an interview in mid-January. He served briefly on the Trump campaign before departing in the wake of the discovery of old, controversial social media posts.

The Special Counsel's office did not respond to an email seeking comment on the report, and the Post was unable to authenticate the two-page subpoena.

According to the Post, the grand jury also wants Nunberg to preserve documents about Trump's former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, Trump's former chief strategist Stephen Bannon, and Trump ally Roger Stone, among others.

Nunberg made the media rounds Monday, offering defiant interviews to the New York Times, CNN and MSNBC.

Though he told the Post there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian effort to hurt Hillary Clinton's chances and sway the election in Trump's favor, he alluded in several of interviews Monday afternoon that Mueller's team may have "something" on Trump.

"I think they may. I think that he may have done something during the election," Nunberg told MSNBC's Katy Tur Monday afternoon.

Still, he told CNN's Jake Tapper that the idea that Trump colluded with Russia would amount to "looking down on them."

"He wouldn't be able to keep his mouth shut," Nunberg added.

Nunberg also told CNN that Trump knew about the June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower where Trump's namesake Donald Trump Jr. met with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya and other senior campaign aides.

The White House did not immediately respond to an email seeking a response to Nunberg’s comments, but White House press secretary Sarah Sanders refuted Nunberg’s assertions during a press briefing Monday.

“I definitely think he doesn’t know that for sure because he’s incorrect,” Sanders said.

Nunberg indicated in several of his interviews that his defiance was more about protecting Stone than Trump.

He told CNN's Gloria Borger in an interview: "They want me to testify against Roger. They want me to say that Roger was going around telling people he was colluding with Julian Assange."

Stone denied any knowledge of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia in a statement to CNN.

Nunberg's attorney, Patrick Brackley, did not respond to an email seeking comment on his client's comments.

Categories / Criminal, Government, National, Politics

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