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Poll: Many Still Want Congress to Probe Trump-Russia Collusion


As the nation awaits the release of the special counsels report Thursday, a new poll finds that many Americans arent ready to clear President Donald Trump in the Russia investigation. Slightly more Americans want Congress to keep investigating than to set aside its probes after special counsel Robert Mueller left open the question of whether Trump broke the law.

About 6 in 10 continue to believe the president obstructed justice.

The poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research also finds greater GOP confidence in the investigation after Attorney General William Barr in late March released his letter saying Mueller found no criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia but didnt make a judgment on the obstruction question.

At the same time, the poll indicates that Americans are mostly that has been released so far. , when Barr is expected to release a redacted version of the nearly 400-page report.

Trump has repeatedly claimed total exoneration, after Barr asserted in his memo that there was insufficient evidence for an obstruction prosecution.

Its a total phony, Trump said of all allegations to Minneapolis TV station KSTP this week. Any aspect of that report, I hope it does come out because there was no collusion, whatsoever, no collusion. There was no obstruction because that was ruled by the attorney general.

Overall, 39 of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing as president, roughly unchanged from mid-March, before Mueller completed his two-year investigation.

But many Americans still have questions.

Its kind of hard to believe what the president says as far as exoneration, said James Brown, 77, of Philadelphia, who doesnt affiliate with either party but says his political views lean conservative. And in my mind the attorney general is a Trump person, so hes not going to do anything against Trump.

The poll shows 35 of Americans think that Trump did something illegal related to Russia — largely unchanged since the earlier poll. An additional 34 think hes done something unethical.

Brown says he remains extremely concerned about possible inappropriate contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia, citing Trumps past interest in building a Trump Tower in Moscow, and believes the president committed crimes of obstruction to cover up financial interests. Hes not going to jeopardize his pocketbook for anything, he said.

Still, the poll suggests Barrs summary helped allay some lingering doubts within the GOP. Among Republicans, more now say Trump did nothing wrong at all (65 vs. 55 a month ago) and fewer say he did something unethical (27, down from 37 a month ago).

Glen Sebring, 56, of Chico, California, says he thinks the nation should put the Russia investigations to rest after reading Barrs four-page summary of the Mueller report. The moderate Republican credits Trump with helping double the money hes now earning because of an improving economy and says Congress should spend more time on issues such as lowering health care costs.

Its like beating a dead horse, Sebring said. Weve got a lot more important things to worry about.

Even as Trump blasts the Mueller probe as a Democratic witch hunt, poll respondents expressed more confidence that the investigation was impartial. The growing confidence since March was driven by Republicans: Three-quarters now say they are at least moderately confident in the probe, and 38 are very or extremely confident, up from 46 and 18, respectively, in March. Among Democrats, about 70 are at least moderately confident, down slightly from a month ago, and 45 are very or extremely confident.

Still, 61 of Americans say they believe the Justice Department has shared too few details so far with the public, and 55 think it has shared too few with Congress. About a third think the department has shared too little with the White House, which has argued that portions of the report should be kept confidential if they involve private conversations of the president subject to executive privilege.

Democrats have been calling for Mueller himself to testify before Congress and have expressed concern that Barr will order unnecessary censoring of the report to protect Trump. The House Judiciary Committee, led by Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, is poised to try to compel Barr to turn over an unredacted copy as well as the reports underlying investigative files.

The poll shows that even with the Mueller probe complete, 53 say Congress should continue to investigate Trumps ties with Russia, while 45 say Congress should not. A similar percentage, 53, say Congress should take steps to impeach Trump if he is found to have obstructed justice, even if he did not have inappropriate contacts with Russia.

We dont even know what we found yet in the probe. Until we do, Congress should definitely continue to push this issue, said Tina Perales, a 35-year old small-business owner in Norton, Ohio, who describes herself as Republican. That little letter Barr sent out summarizing the report I think was completely BS. This Mueller thing is hundreds of pages, and he just sums it up like this? These things just dont add up.

Deep partisan divisions remain.

Democrats were much more likely than Republicans to believe Trump had done something improper and to support continued investigations that could lead to his removal from office. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has downplayed the likelihood of impeachment proceedings but isnt closing the door entirely if there are significant findings of Trump misconduct.

On investigations, 84 of Democrats believe lawmakers shouldnt let up in scrutinizing Trumps ties to Russia, but the same share of Republicans disagrees. Similarly, 83 of Democrats say Congress should take steps to impeach Trump if he is found to have obstructed justice, even if he did not have inappropriate contacts with Russia, while 82 of Republicans say Congress should not.

The AP-NORC poll of 1,108 adults was conducted April 11-14 using a sample drawn from NORCs probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.1 percentage points. Respondents were first selected randomly using address-based sampling methods, and later interviewed online or by phone.

(AP)



2 Responses

  1. More important than this largely partisan poll, is what effect will the release of the Mueller Report have on Democrats? Will key vocal anti-Trump members of Congress (Nadler and Schiff) become more vulnerable? Will viable candidates run against them? Nadler is not satisfied and is trying (in desperation) to milk this for whatever he can get out of it. Jerrold Nadler has never been a friend of the Jewish community. Can we oust him?

  2. To Mottel: your question – “Can we oust him?” is silly and, possibly, anti-Semitic. First, the silliness: the only people who can oust him are the voters in his Congressional District. Most high school kids know that.

    Second, the anti-Semitism: Who is the “we” in your question? If it is readers of YWN, or frum Jews, or Jews, you seem to think that some Jews may have special political power. That is one major trope of anti-Semitism.

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