Sam Nunberg, a former adviser to US President Donald Trump, claimed in a string of bizarre interviews he would not be sent to prison for refusing to testify at a federal investigation.
The former adviser said he had been called before the Intelligence Committee to testify in front of a grand jury in the Russia investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller into Mr Trump's 2016 election campaign.
Mr Nunberg, who worked on the campaign during 2015, said collecting emails and other communications he had with other key Trump advisors - particularly Steve Bannon and Roger Stone - was too much trouble and he would not do it.
"Screw that," Mr Nunberg told CNN's Gloria Borger in an interview on air.
"Why do I have to go? Why? For what?"
Mr Nunberg also told CNN's Erin Burnett he thought it was "ridiculous" he could go to prison for not testifying.
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"Mueller is not going to send me to prison for this," he said.
"This is ridiculous."
Mr Nunberg reportedly worked for the Trump Organisation - the US president's business conglomerate - beginning in 2011 before becoming a paid aide on the New York real estate mogul's presidential campaign.
But he was fired in August that year after strong racist comments he made on his Facebook page years earlier surfaced.
Despite continued animosity between him and Mr Trump over the posts, Mr Nunberg said he would not cooperate with the "witch hunt" probe.
He said he had been interviewed by the team of Mr Mueller for more than five hours late last month.
'Incorrect?'
Since then, Mr Mueller has demanded all of his records and communications with people on the campaign, which Mr Nunberg said would take too much time to assemble.
"I think it would be really, really funny if they wanted to arrest me because I don't want to spend 80 hours going over emails I had with [Trump advisors] Steve Bannon and Roger Stone," he told MSNBC.
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"Roger is my mentor. Roger is like family to me. I'm not going to do it."
Mr Nunberg said Mueller's questioning suggested he was looking into stories about the president and prostitutes when Mr Trump took his Miss Universe pageant to Moscow in 2013.
He also said the investigators insinuated Mr Stone had collaborated with Julian Assange's WikiLeaks group, which published documents hacked from Democrat Hillary Clinton's election campaign in mid-2016.
US intelligence has said those documents were illicitly obtained by or on behalf of the Russian government.
Mr Nunberg said Mr Mueller likely has some kind of evidence on Mr Trump of misbehaviour, "but I don't know about that for sure".
"I don't know what he is looking into," he told CNN.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders dismissed Mr Nunberg's comments.
"I definitely think he doesn't know that for sure because he's incorrect," she said about the former adviser's suggestion Mr Trump may have done something illicit during the election.
"He hasn't worked at the White House, so I certainly can't speak to him or the lack of knowledge that he clearly has.
"We are fully cooperating with the office of the special counsel. We're going to continue to do so."
The interview sparked concern online Mr Nunberg appeared under "severe mental distress".
At one point, CNN's Burnett remarked to him, "I have smelled alcohol on your breath."
To which Mr Nunberg responded: "I have not had a drink."
Burnett asked him again, "have you had a drink today?", and Mr Nunberg said: "No... besides my meds, anti-depressants".
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- with AFP
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