Name: Sam Nunberg.
Age: 36.
Appearance: Frequent, on all major US news channels over the past 24 hours or so.
Ooh, why? Oscar winner? Or something bad? The latter, but not for us.
That’s the best kind! Do go on. Who is he? He was Donald Trump’s political adviser before the man with a tan began his White House run.
What’s he doing now? Getting subpoenaed by Robert Mueller, who has demanded Nunberg’s cooperation with his investigation into alleged collusion between Trump’s motley crew and Russia.
Let me guess. He made a short, considered statement announcing his full support for the investigation and retired gracefully to consult with his lawyer? Hahaha. No. He gave six interviews in four hours of a nature that suggested, as one commentator put it, that he was either “drunk or off his meds”.
Surely not? What did he say? Amid promising to tear up his subpoena on live TV, calling White House communications director Sarah Huckabee a “fat slob” who should “shut her fat mouth” and saying that Trump caused the investigation “because he’s an idiot”, he said that Trump “may have done something” illegal during the campaign. “I don’t know that for sure,” he added, cursorily.
So he has announced he’s going to defy the special prosecutor. “Arrest me,” he said. “I think it would be funny if they arrest me.”
And he says – almost – that the president is guilty of collusion? Not quite.
Is he aware that Mueller can actually have him arrested? Unclear. But during another interview he raged against the unfairness of Mueller targeting him and reiterated his refusal to cooperate. Interviewer Jake Tapper suggested that sometimes life and special prosecutors aren’t fair, and that if he were in Nunberg’s position, he would cooperate. “But I’m a different breed of cat,” he added.
When your interviewers are counselling you … Look, is he off his meds? Or drunk? During a second CNN interview, presenter Erin Burnett did tell him gently that she could smell alcohol on his breath. He denied drinking.
Hmm. Any news since? He is backtracking slightly on the subpoena-defiance thing, telling the Associated Press that he will probably end up working with investigators. More news as we barely comprehensibly get it.
Do say: “I will cooperate fully with people who have the power to incarcerate me if I do not.”
Don’t say: “You won’t get me! I’m invisible, look! More scotch, mofo!”
