Russia special counsel Robert Mueller has learned President Donald Trump asked two witnesses, including former chief of staff Reince Priebus, about their interviews with investigators, The New York Times reported Wednesday.
The Times cited "three people familiar with the encounters" in its report.
In one instance, Trump told former White House staff secretary Rob Porter that counsel Donald McGahn should deny a Times article in January saying the president had asked McGhan to fire Mueller last year.
McGahn, however, never released a statement to rebut the Jan. 25 article, according to the Times.
Regarding Priebus, President Trump asked him in December how his interview two months earlier went with Mueller's investigators and whether they had been "nice," two people familiar with the discussion said.
The White House did not respond to "several" requests for comment, the Times reported, while Priebus and McGahn declined to comment through their lawyer, William Burck.
However, "legal experts said Mr. Trump's contact with the men most likely did not rise to the level of witness tampering," according to the report, though they reported the conversations because they "viewed them as potentially a problem."
The experts told the Times that, still, the discussions could boost any obstruction case on Russia that Mueller might build against President Trump.
"It makes it look like you're cooking a story, and prosecutors are always looking out for it," said Julie O'Sullivan, a Georgetown University law professor.
"It can get at the issue of consciousness of guilt in an obstruction case because if you didn't do anything wrong, why are you doing that?"
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