President Trump's Monday morning tweets attacking Michael Cohen and commending Roger Stone for saying he never would testify against the president could be evidence of a crime.
Trump's tweet about Stone touched off a debate in legal circles, with several experts, including attorney George Conway, the husband of White House counselor Kellyanne Conway and often a strident critic of the president, taking issue with the president's comment.
Conway tweeted: "File under 18 U.S.C. §§ 1503, 1512" — sections of U.S. code dealing with witness tampering and obstruction of justice.
Neal Katyal, acting solicitor general under President Barack Obama, tweeted Conway was "right."
"This is genuinely looking like witness tampering," Katyal wrote. "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" circumstances.
Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, ranking Democrat on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said Trump's comments were a "serious" issue.
"The President of the United States should not be using his platform to influence potential witnesses in a federal investigation involving his campaign," Warner wrote on Twitter.
Other legal experts say it would be hard to prove criminal intent based on the president's tweets alone.
"It would be an incredibly difficult case, as Trump would say that Stone is already telling the truth and Trump is merely praising him for that," [criminal defense attorney Ken] White added in an email. "But it's very norm-violating. And it drives prosecutors crazy."
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And Renato Mariotti, a former federal prosecutor, also tweeted that it would be difficult for a prosecutor to charge Trump with a crime based on solely the tweet.
Conway, Katyal "and other highly respected attorneys quickly noted that Trump’s tweet looks a lot like witness tampering," Mariotti wrote. "They're right — it does. But proving beyond a reasonable doubt that it’s witness tampering is more challenging than it might seem at first glance."
Trump hailed Roger Stone for standing up to Mueller. Some legal experts said that's tampering. (NBC News)