Sam Nunberg
Sam Nunberg, one of Trump's political advisers, has a personal Facebook page that features notes he's posted since 2007.
These updates, which are riddled with grammatical and spelling errors, contain many racially charged statements including one instance on August 25, 2007 where Nunberg wrote about calling Rev. Al Sharpton's daughter "N---!"
Nunberg is a lawyer who graduated from Touro Law Center in Long Island, New York. He is an associate of controversial Trump adviser Roger Stone.
According to Nunberg's Linkedin page, he served as the co-chair of "Students for Mitt" in New York City for Mitt Romney's 2008 presidential campaign while he was in law school. Nunberg's Linkedin also says he worked for the Middle East Forum's Legal Project and the conservative non-profit American Center for Law and Justice.
Trump's campaign finance reports show Nunberg is one of eight individuals who were paid political advisers on his campaign from April through the start of this month. During that period, the reports show Nunberg received $15,139 from the Trump campaign.
When Business Insider reached out to Nunberg to ask about the comments, he expressed his surprise and said he could not remember posting them.
"I'm shocked and I don't recall them," Nunberg said.
Nunberg also noted he was not working for Trump when the comments were posted.
A spokesperson for the Trump campaign told Business Insider that Nunberg would be "terminated immediately" when they verified he posted the comments on Facebook. They also described Nunberg as a "low-level" staffer.
"Sam Nunberg is just a short-term consultant with the campaign along with many others. If he did make these statements he will be terminated immediately," the spokesperson said. "Mr. Trump would never condone such statements from anybody in his campaign ... even if that person had a low-level campaign position."
Business Insider pointed out to the spokesperson that the comments were first being reported in this post. The spokesperson explained that they wished someone who had seen them earlier or when they were originally posted had alerted Trump. Business Insider also noted Nunberg was only one of eight paid individuals listed in the Trump campaign's financial disclosures. The spokesperson still disputed any characterization of Nunberg as a senior staffer.
"He has been, as you know, part of some type of organization in the past, but has not been a senior person on the campaign," the spokesperson said, adding, "And if these statements are accurate, we are very clear that Mr. Trump would never condone such statements from anybody on the campaign."
In a phone conversation with Business Insider, Sharpton said Nunberg's remarks raise questions about the Trump campaign operation as a whole.
"That is ugly and repugnant for anyone to have access to the frontrunner as a paid employee that has these kinds of sentiments and has them so arrogantly that they would place them on their Facebook page," Sharpton explained. "This is not something that someone said and was overheard, this is something that he has branded. And if he can be the communications person for the frontrunner, then this is an offense and a direct slap in the face of all Americans that would entertain whether or not Mr. Trump could be the leader of the free world."
On his Facebook page, Nunberg has published strongly worded attacks on politicians from both parties. Much of Nunberg's digital criticism focused on President Barack Obama. Among other things, Nunberg called Obama a "Socialist Marxist Islamo Fascist Nazi Appeaser" and "Farrakahn's Messiah." Some of Nunberg's posts about Obama contained seemingly mocking references to the president's race and background including updates where Nunberg implied Obama is a "Kenyan" and "Muslim." Three days before Obama was inaugurated in 2009, Nunberg joked that "there still are tickets available for the Hip Hop Inaugral Ball."
Check out some of Nunberg's posts about Obama below.
Though Nunberg's message about Sharpton's daughter was somewhat censored, Sharpton said the post is clearly an "N word" and "racist," particularly when viewed in the context of Nunberg's messages about Obama.
"When you refer to him as 'Kenyan,' when you refer to him in those terms and when you spell out omitting letters using an N-word referring to my daughter thats as racial as you can get," said Sharpton. "You can't get more racist than that."
Along with attacking Obama, Nunberg also criticized Republicans on Facebook. He said New York City mayor and 2008 presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani was a "punk" with a "bad lisp." Nunberg also dubbed Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona), who has been a frequent target of Trump's, as "McLame." During McCain's 2008 presidential bid, Nunberg published an update mocking him as too old to run for office.
On January 30, 2008, against the backdrop of McCain's White House bid, Nunberg posted a pair of updates criticizing what he described as "open border Republicans. Nunberg had several Facebook updates indicating he was a fan of conservative radio host Mark Levin, who has attacked McCain for supporting immigration reform. In his second post that day, Nunberg suggested he agreed with Levin and said McCain was flushing the GOP "down Taco Bell's toilet."
Huckabee isn't the only 2016 presidential candidate who faced Nunberg's Facebook wrath. Nunberg has dismissed New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) as a "fat slob."
On June 10, 2009, Nunberg seemingly criticized his future boss when he published an update siding with Carrie Prejean, who had been stripped of her Miss USA California title by Trump amid a nude photo scandal. Trump, who owns most of the Miss Universe pageant, approved the decision to take Prejean's title. Nunberg clearly did not agree:
In addition to the update about calling Sharpton's daughter "N---!," Nunberg also referenced the civil rights leader in a post on October 15, 2009. That update referred to an incident where conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh was dropped from a group that tried to buy the St. Louis Rams after National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell expressed concerns about Limbaugh's "polarizing" statements. Nunberg said this was unfair since some NFL players have criminal histories and described the situation as "Rev. Sharpton justice YO!"
