Republican Witness Tampering Scandals

promised to pardon his personal aide and "body man" Walt Nauta if he was convicted of lying to the FBI about his knowledge of Trump's illegal retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago if he becomes President again

urged his longtime personal assistant to lie to federal authorities investigating his illegal retention of classified documents by telling her point-blank "you don't know anything about the boxes" which CNN chief legal analyst Elie Honig characterized as "textbook obstruction of justice" and "textbook witness tampering" that has the protentional to be "really devastating" for Trump

brazenly called for the former Lt. Governor of Georgia to refuse to testify before a grand jury criminally investigating him for trying to overturn the 2020 election results in the state which multiple legal experts characterized as "witness tampering in real time"

coached a witness to subvert justice and achieve a legal outcome he supposedly desired by giving them false information that prosecutors contend was meant to affect their testimony

pressured a sexual abuse victim's elderly parents to convince their son to retract his accusation that he knew about rampant sexual abuse by a team doctor he worked with and turned a blind eye to it for years

was indicted for official misconduct in office and tampering with a witness in an apparent attempt to cover his tracks

personally attempted to contact a 1/6 Committee witness presumably to pressure them to not disclose any damaging information about him when they testified before the committee

strongly hinted that he would pardon people convicted of crimes related to the 1/6 insurrection by saying he'll be "looking at them very, very seriously," but only if they didn't cooperate with authorities

schemed to cover up evidence of his acceptance of bribes by lying to federal authorities who confronted him and "counseled" his coconspirator how to mislead federal investigators on multiple occasions without knowing that he was working as a cooperating witness

used a government-issued credit card for personal expenses including gasoline, claimed mileage for trips that he used a government-owned vehicle for, pressured a witness to lie to federal investigators and lied to investigators himself

voted in a district he no longer resided in and later unsuccessfully tried to bribe a local Housing Authority employee into falsifying a letter to election officials that attested he had only temporarily moved out of the district in exchange for a donation to the county Housing Authority

illegally used his family, employees and friends as "straw donors" to donate $100k each to two political candidates and later interfered with the criminal case by attempting to influence a government witness

offered to forgive one of his sexual assault victim's debt owed to him if her mother agreed to not pursue charges against him and urged another victim to lie to the police when they questioned her about his assault