Washington
CNN
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Former Trump campaign aide Sam Nunberg said in a CNN interview that he would refuse to appear before a federal grand jury after being subpoenaed in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US election.
So, who exactly is Sam Nunberg, beyond a former adviser to President Donald Trump’s campaign team? Well, he’s a man who Trump has hired, fired, rehired, refired and then sued for $10 million.
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A history with Trump of being hired, fired and sued
- Nunberg was fired in February 2014 by Trump even after offering his resignation. Nunberg convinced Trump to participate in a BuzzFeed article that ended up being highly critical of a potential campaign by the real estate mogul.
- Nunberg was rehired by Trump as a communications adviser in February 2015, according to The Washington Post.
- Then he was fired again – this time from the campaign – in August 2015. The firing came after Business Insider reported Nunberg had a history of racially charged and disparaging political posts dating back to 2007 on Facebook. He wrote this, with three dashes, about an upcoming meeting with the Rev. Al Sharpton: “his daughter is N—!” And he called President Barack Obama a “Socialist Marxist Islamo Fascist Nazi Appeaser.” Nunberg denied to CNN at the time that he had written the posts and said “anything that was posted under my name does not mean I posted it.” However, he apologized in a 2017 MSNBC interview.
- At the time of his second firing, a campaign spokesperson described him as a “low-level” staffer.
- A few months later, in March 2016, Nunberg endorsed Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas in the Republican primary. He said Trump “does not have a coherent political ideology,” according to Politico.
- In December 2016, Hope Hicks shared strong words on Nunberg with Politico. “He’s a highly self-destructive individual who makes routine calls begging for his job back,” Hicks said to Politico. Her statement was in response to a Nunberg interview where he said he didn’t think Trump would win the election.
- In July 2016, Trump sued Nunberg for $10 million, alleging Nunberg breached a confidentiality agreement. At the time, Nunberg’s lawyer told CNN that Nunberg was being accused of “violating certain confidentiality provisions by talking about Donald Trump after he was no longer associated with the campaign.” Nunberg “amicably” settled the $10 million lawsuit with Trump in August 2016, CNN reported.
A background in law and Roger Stone
- Nunberg graduated from the Touro Law Center in Long Island, New York, according to his LinkedIn profile.
- For previous experience on LinkedIn, Nunberg listed himself as the New York City chair for “Students for Mitt” during the 2008 presidential election while in law school.
- He was the deputy director of government affairs for the American Center for Law and Justice, a politically conservative, Christian-based nonprofit organization, from August 2009 to January 2011, according to a news release.
- From January 2012 to November 2014, he was the director of the Middle East Forum’s Legal Project.
- He graduated from McGill University in Montreal in 2004, according to his LinkedIn profile.
- Nunberg co-wrote a Breitbart article with Roger Stone in March 2015 on Hillary Clinton and the 2012 attack on a US diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya. Nunberg wrote a handful of other articles for Breitbart dated from April 2013 to December 2015.