Fired Trump Aide Speculates Wildly About Trump, And The Mainstream Media Laps It Up

by Chuck Ross

• Sam Nunberg believes that special counsel Robert Mueller is zeroing in on Trump over his business dealings
• The former Trump campaign adviser also asserted Carter Page colluded with Kremlin officials 
• Cable networks MSNBC and CNN devoted wall-to-wall coverage to Nunberg’s allegations

Former Trump campaign adviser Sam Nunberg made waves on Monday by saying in multiple TV interviews that he believes that special counsel Robert Mueller is zeroing in on President Donald Trump over his business dealings.

He also asserted that former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page colluded with Kremlin officials — an allegation made in the unverified Steele dossier — and that Trump had advanced knowledge about the infamous June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and a group of Russians.

Cable networks MSNBC and CNN devoted wall-to-wall coverage to Nunberg’s allegations, granting him several interviews throughout the day. Nunberg’s final interview was given to CNN’s Erin Burnett, who asked during the segment whether Nunberg was drunk.

One fact was lost in the coverage: Nunberg’s statements were largely based on wild speculation and guessing.

Nunberg, a self-proclaimed protegé of Trump friend Roger Stone, was fired from the Trump campaign in August 2015 after some of his racially charged social media posts were reported by Business Insider. Because of his early departure from the campaign, Nunberg likely had little visibility into much of what allegedly went on during the campaign.

Regarding Trump’s pre-campaign business activities, Nunberg was unable to provide damaging information on those to Mueller’s investigators.

Nunberg entered the spotlight earlier in the day after he told The Washington Post that he plans to defy a subpoena from Mueller to appear before a grand jury on Friday and to turn over communications records with Trump and nine campaign advisers.

“Let him arrest me,” said Nunberg, who was interviewed by Mueller’s investigators in February.

After that story, Nunberg made gave a series of interviews on MSNBC and CNN, repeating his defiance and claiming that he believes that Mueller’s team is closing in on Trump.

The Daily Caller News Foundation was told that Mueller’s investigators, led by Justice Department attorney Aaron Zelinsky, centered on four main topics: Trump deals related to Trump Tower in Moscow, Trump’s 2013 trip to Moscow for the Miss Universe pageant, dealings with Mafia figures, and payoffs to women.

Nunberg would feasibly have knowledge of Trump’s pre-campaign activities, including Trump Organization’s failed attempts to build a Trump Tower in Moscow and a trip to the Russian capital in 2013 that is at the center of allegations made in the infamous Steele dossier.

Nunberg said that he saw no evidence of illegal activity related to Trump Tower Moscow. He also said he saw no Russians around the real estate company at the time.

He also denied allegations about prostitutes in Moscow that closely mirror claims made in the Steele dossier.

The dossier, which was written by former British spy Christopher Steele, alleges that the Kremlin has used a 2013 video recording of Trump in a Moscow hotel with prostitutes in order to blackmail the Republican.

The allegation is false, Nunberg says. He claimed that Trump’s longtime bodyguard, Keith Schiller, told him that Russian pop star Emin Agalarov offered to send five women to Trump’s hotel room but that Trump was “disgusted” by the offer and rejected it.

Schiller, who worked in Trump White House but left in 2017, discussed the Moscow visit during an interview in 2017 with the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. A Russian associate of Agalarov’s offered the prostitutes but that the offer was rejected, he said.

Nunberg also acknowledged that he was speculating about what Trump knew about the controversial June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Trump Jr. and a group of Russian lobbyists.

Nunberg initially told interviewers that Trump knew about the meeting before it happened. If true, that would be a major revelation that would conflict with statements from the White House.

Nunberg later told Vox.com he was speculating about what Trump knew about that controversial meeting.

“I have no special knowledge at all,” he said.

Nunberg appears to have had no special insight into Page’s activities on the campaign. Page, an energy consultant who joined the campaign seven months after Nunberg was fired, was accused in the dossier of being the Trump campaign’s liaison to the Kremlin for the purposes of collusion.

Page has never talked to or met Nunberg, he told TheDCNF on Monday and Nunberg said the same in one of his interviews.

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