George Conway, the husband of White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, suggested on Monday that President Trump obstructed justice and tampered with a witness when he praised Roger Stone for vowing never to testify against the president.
“File under ’18 U.S.C. §§ 1503, 1512,'” George Conway tweeted, a reference to the statutes for obstruction of justice and tampering with witnesses, informants or victims, respectively.
George Conway, an attorney, was quoting a tweet in which the president lauded Stone for saying there’s “no circumstance” in which he would testify against Trump because it would mean he’d “have to make things up.”
{mosads}”Nice to know that some people still have ‘guts!’ ” Trump wrote.
Stone made the comments in an interview on Sunday, and added that he had not been in discussions with the president about a potential pardon should he be indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller.
George Conway regularly shares opinions critical of the president’s policies and rhetoric, particularly regarding the special counsel’s investigation.
Neal Katyal, who served as acting solicitor general during the Obama administration and has co-written opinion pieces with George Conway, on Monday concurred with his implication.
“This is genuinely looking like witness tampering,” he tweeted. “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.”
In separate tweets on Monday, Trump targeted both Mueller and his former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, who last week agreed to cooperate with the special counsel and pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about negotiations for a Trump Tower in Moscow that took place during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Trump repeated his claim that Cohen, who worked for years at the Trump Organization, lied to get a reduced sentence. He asserted that Cohen should “serve a full and complete sentence.”
Cohen said in his guilty plea that he was untruthful about his involvement in plans to build a Trump Tower in Moscow in order to remain loyal to the president and consistent with his “political message.”
Cohen previously told Congress that negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow ended in January 2016, but emails showed that he continued to talk with a Russian developer about the project into the summer of 2016 and kept Trump informed of the talks amid the presidential campaign.
Trump has downplayed the negotiations, calling it “very legal & very cool” that he continued to run his business while campaigning for president.