Sam Nunberg, a lawyer and public affairs consultant who advised Donald Trump during his 2016 presidential campaign, says that while the president needs to correct the bad impression created by his Helsinki summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the real villain in this story is Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller.
In terms of the worldwide PR disaster created by Trump's press conference with Putin, during that event, Nunberg encouraged Trump to follow the example of another world leader, French President Emmanuel Macron.
"It is in the president's best political interest to confront Putin, à la what Macron did," Nunberg told Salon. "The only thing the president can do now is issue a statement apologizing or clarifying his remarks and explaining the predicament he's in."
At the same time, Nunberg believes that Trump's handling of the situation will only play into Mueller's hands.
"The president fell right into Mueller's trap," Nunberg told Salon. "The president continues to give his enemies all the cards they need. The president should never -- any president should never -- stand on a foreign stage on foreign soil with a foreign leader who is, if not an adversary at least a competitor ... and question our intelligence community's findings.
"However, the president is in the historic predicament of standing on a stage next to a leader who many in the intelligence community believe, in the highest echelons, colluded with the president," Nunberg continued. "If the president said, yes, he did it, Mueller will say Trump aided and abetted after the fact and was part of the conspiracy."
Nunberg then referred to Trump's invitation to the Russians, in July 2016, to hack or at least hand over Hillary Clinton's supposed missing emails. "Remember, Mueller made a point to say that the Russians started hacking when Trump made those public comments," Nunberg said. "Now, of course the Russians never released the emails Trump was referring to, that's one point, but further, the Russians didn't have her server. ... But they released DNC emails."
Nunberg, who served on and off as an adviser for Trump's campaign, after repeatedly falling out of the future president's good graces, believes that Trump is now caught "between a rock and a hard place."
Nunberg suggests that the special counsel successfully manipulated Trump into a major diplomatic faux pas. "Mueller highly inappropriately, if not illegally, released an indictment to influence foreign policy only three days before" the summit with Putin, Nunberg told Salon. "That said, the issue isn't with the president coming to an agreement with Putin on cooperation with the investigation and indictment. Mueller should not be able to simply indict Russians, have them not show up in court and then say they've been found guilty."
Nunberg also defended Trump's distrust toward the leadership of America's intelligence community. "Frankly, why should the president trust -- not the rank and file of our intelligence and FBI -- but the highest echelons?" he asked. "Because no matter what this investigation -- whatever the findings are, [they] are still part of the [James] Comey poisonous tree." Nunberg says he believes leaders in law enforcement and intelligence agencies "were clearly out to get this guy out of office from the very beginning. You don't write those memos, you don't leak them to the press."
Nunberg admits, however, that Trump's remarks have muddied the issue: "The president is constitutionally incapable of differentiating between collusion and meddling."
Perhaps most important, Nunberg insists that the accusations that Trump colluded with Russian agents are overblown, given the administration's harsh policies toward that country.
"Here's another critical point, and the Democrats have no answer to this: If you judge the president by his actions, Putin is not getting a return on investment. In fact he's losing badly. Trump's playing him!" Nunberg said.
Nunberg's statements were part of a broader theme, introduced in an earlier conversation with this reporter on Monday, before the press conference in Helsinki. He said then that he believed Mueller had released his indictments of 12 Russian military intelligence agents in order to interfere with Trump's ability to conduct foreign policy.
"I don't believe Mueller is stupid, although I do believe he's a little slow in terms of putting out this evidence. But he's not stupid," Nunberg said in the earlier interview. "Therefore he realizes exactly what he did when he released" the indictments after FBI agent Peter Strzok's testimony on Capitol Hill but before the president's meeting with Putin.
He added, "Mueller tried to conduct foreign policy there, with that. It's another constitutional issue I have." Nunberg suggested that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversees the Russia investigation, will never "moderate or stop Mueller from doing anything, so Mueller is in effect the de facto attorney general of the United States. Unless I missed something he never went through a confirmation hearing, which is a violation of the appointments clause."
During that conversation Nunberg also rejected the notion that Trump has been soft on Russia, arguing that when it comes to his policies, this president has actually been tougher on Russia than his predecessors.
"Putin's consequences are the sanctions, which the president has also increased unilaterally through his Treasury Department," Nunberg said. "So the whole idea that Trump is weak on Russia, I can point out to you that Trump has been harder on Russia than Obama has. Trump has armed the Ukrainians, Trump has kicked out 60 diplomats, Trump has tried to call out the Nord Stream 2 deal," meaning the gas pipeline deal between the German government and Gazprom, a Russian company allied with the Putin regime.
Nunberg's argument was echoed, albeit in a very different context, by Michael McFaul, who served as U.S. ambassador to Russia under Barack Obama.
"I can’t think of another case with any president, with any bilateral relationship, where you have just this giant gap between the administration’s policy and the president himself," McFaul told Salon last month. "It’s extraordinary."
Unlike Nunberg, McFaul has been unequivocal in his condemnation of Trump's conduct during the summit in Helsinki.
Nunberg has had a tempestuous relationship with Mueller himself. When he was subpoenaed to appear before the special counsel's investigators, Nunberg initially claimed he would defy the order and risk imprisonment. Ultimately he showed up, claiming that he did so because it was his "duty as an American, whether I like it or not," according to Politico. Around that time he said there was some "truth" behind the Russia investigation but insisted, "I don't believe this leads to the president."
Last year Salon spoke with Nunberg's mentor, Roger Stone, about his alleged connections to Russia.
"The only reason someone would not want me to testify is because if I'm allowed to do so, I will put the lie to this Russian myth," Stone told Salon at the time. "Based on what we're learning today, I think you will have confirmation that I was the subject of a FISA warrant back in June. [Presumably June of 2016.] That would mean that the government has been looking at all my emails and texts and, you know, monitoring my phone conversations. They may find out a lot of interesting things, but what they won't find is any contact or coordination with any Russians. I've never been to Russia. I've never spoken to anybody in Russia."
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