(RNN) - President Donald Trump has ignored the counsel of his lawyers on at least two occasions and asked associates about their interviews with special counsel Robert Mueller's investigators, according to a New York Times report.
The Times cited "three people familiar with the encounters" who said Trump had broached the subject with Donald McGahn II, the White House counsel, and Reince Priebus, the former chief of staff.
The report added that such discussions "most likely did not rise to the level of witness tampering" but that it was problematic enough that the incidents were reported to Mueller.
In one instance, the president raised the idea of McGahn issuing a denial to a Times report that said he'd once asked him to fire Mueller. McGahn never did.
In the other, Trump asked Priebus how his meeting with the special counsel's team had gone.
Legal experts told The Times the incidents could lead Mueller to focus on possible interference and serve as evidence of obstruction.
One expert, Georgetown University law professor Julie R. O'Sullivan, told the paper, "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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