Sam Nunberg (born June 21, 1981) is an American public affairs consultant based in Manhattan.[1] He was a political advisor to Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. In March 2018, Nunberg was subpoenaed by a grand jury for testimony and documents relating to the Special Counsel's Russia investigation.[2]
Sam Nunberg | |
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Born | June 21, 1981 |
Education | McGill University (BA) Touro Law Center (JD) |
Occupation | Political consultant |
Political party | Republican |
Nunberg was born to a Jewish family; his mother was a corporate attorney at Wachtell, Lipton and his father was a real estate attorney who worked with Trump attorney Gerald Schrager.[3] He attended the Ramaz School an independent co-educational Modern Orthodox Jewish prep school in the Upper East Side neighborhood of Manhattan.[3] He graduated with a BA in History, with a senior thesis titled Re-Analyzing the Historiography of the Effects of Dollar Diplomacy, from McGill University in 2004, where he competed globally with the McGill Debating Union.[4][5] He attended Touro Law Center on Long Island, New York, from 2007 to 2009, graduating in 2009, and was admitted to the New York state bar in 2013.[6]
While volunteering for the Mitt Romney 2008 presidential campaign, Nunberg met and was recruited by attorney Jay Sekulow to volunteer at the American Center for Law & Justice in an attempt to stop the construction of the Park51 mosque.[7] While volunteering there he met political operative Roger Stone, whom he has described as his mentor and "surrogate father".[8][9][10]
Nunberg began working for Trump, as a political and public affairs consultant, in 2011,[11] after Trump decided not to run for president in 2012.[1] Nunberg assisted in the writing of Trump's 2011 speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference.[12]
In February 2014 Nunberg was fired by Trump after he arranged a BuzzFeed interview that ended up being highly critical of Trump; the headline was "36 Hours on The Fake Campaign Trail with Donald Trump."[5][13] Nunberg was rehired in April 2014 and was Trump's first full time hire for the Donald Trump for President 2016 Campaign; he was let go in December for undisclosed reasons. In February 2015 he was once again rehired by Trump, as a communications adviser for the Trump campaign,[14] but was let go, shortly thereafter, by then-campaign manager Corey Lewandowski.[1]
Nunberg was rehired for a fourth time by the campaign in April 2015;[1] between then and the beginning of July he was paid $85,139 (~$107,010 in 2023) by the campaign.[15] Nunberg, along with Stone, helped prepare Trump for the first Republican debate, on August 6, 2015.[16] Nunberg left the campaign in August, 2015 after continued tensions with Lewandowski. In March 2016 Nunberg endorsed Senator Ted Cruz for president, saying that Trump "does not have a coherent political ideology."[5]
In July 2016 Trump sued Nunberg for $10 million (~$12.4 million in 2023), accusing Nunberg of violating a confidentiality agreement by leaking information to the New York Post.[17] In a legal response, Nunberg said that Trump might have illegally funneled corporate money into the campaign.[18] Trump and Nunberg settled their legal dispute in August 2016.[18][19]
On March 5, 2018, Nunberg spoke to multiple cable news outlets and newspaper reporters without the knowledge of his attorney. He said he had been subpoenaed by a grand jury to testify and provide documents relating to Robert Mueller's Russia investigation, including all his email exchanges with Donald Trump, Roger Stone, and eight other people.[20] He insisted he did not intend to comply with the subpoena, saying "Let him (Mueller) arrest me!"[6][20][21] He also had in-person interviews with CNN's Jake Tapper and Erin Burnett[22] and MSNBC's Katy Tur and Ari Melber.[6][23] He later backtracked, saying that he would cooperate fully with the subpoena, while expressing frustration at the large amount of documentation requested.[2] On March 9, 2018 Nunberg testified before a federal grand jury for more than six hours, saying it was his, "duty as an American, whether I like it or not."[24]
Regarding the Mueller investigation, when asked whether he believed that the special counsel may have something on Trump, Nunberg said, "I think they may." He added: "I think that he may have done something during the election. But I don't know that for sure."[25] He also said "I have no knowledge or involvement in Russian collusion or any other inappropriate act" and that: "Donald Trump won this election on his own. He campaigned his ass off. And there is nobody who hates him more than me."[26]
Regarding Trump's former foreign-policy advisor Carter Page, Nunberg said that he believed that Page did collude with the Russians."[27]
Nunberg also has ties to one of Trump's personal attorneys, Jay Sekulow, who he credits with helping him get his start in campaign politics. Nunberg was working as a volunteer for Mitt Romney's 2008 presidential campaign when he first met Sekulow, who also is the chief counsel of the non-profit American Center for Law & Justice. Sekulow recruited Nunberg to work unpaid in ACLJ's New York office to help stop the construction of a mosque near the World Trade Center site.
[Nunberg] continually signaled his intent to protect Stone, whom he characterized at one point as something like a "surrogate father."
Throughout the interview, Nunberg, who was fired from President Trump's campaign in 2015, called Stone "a mentor" and "like a surrogate father" to him, and said he refuses to go in front of a grand jury "for them to set up a case against Roger, whatever case it is."
Scarborough suspected, however, that Nunberg's bizarre, and possibly alcohol-fueled, outburst was part of a setup to protect his political mentor and "surrogate father," Republican dirty trickster Roger Stone, and his old boss.