Trump accused of witness tampering over Roger Stone tweet

Legal experts — including the husband of White House counselor Kellyanne Conway — accused President Trump of witness tampering on Monday after he sent out a tweet praising longtime crony Roger Stone for vowing to never testify against the president.

“’I will never testify against Trump.’ This statement was recently made by Roger Stone, essentially stating that he will not be forced by a rogue and out of control prosecutor to make up lies and stories about ‘President Trump.’ Nice to know that some people still have ‘guts!’” the commander-in-chief wrote in a series of agitated tweets about special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe

“Witness tampering: File under “18 U.S.C. §§ 1503, 1512,” wrote George Conway after retweeting the president’s post, listing the number of the federal criminal statute about “tampering with a witness, victim, or an informant.”

“George is right. This is genuinely looking like witness tampering. DOJ (at least with a nonfake AG) prosecutes cases like these all the time. The fact it’s done out in the open is no defense. Trump is genuinely melting down, and no good lawyer can represent him under these circs,” added Neal Katyal, a law professor and former US acting solicitor general.

“Witness tampering. Again. If only the most competent federal criminal investigator of our age were reading and cataloging — or having someone else do it — every tweet by this man. I imagine what would happen, if that occurred, is that all these tweets would later show up in a report,” tweeted Seth Abramson, an author and law professor at the University of New Hampshire, referring to Mueller, tongue firmly in cheek.

“Witness tampering,” was all Trump biographer Tim O’Brien tweeted after retweeting the president’s post.

Trump also attacked longtime lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen and Mueller in his tweetstorm.

During an exclusive Oval Office interview last week, Trump also dangled a possible pardon for ex-campaign chair Paul Manafort, one of several Trump insiders who’ve pleaded guilty in Mueller’s probe.

“Why would I take it off the table?” the president asked, a remark that also sparked charges of witness tampering.

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