Donald Trump can call the Russia probe a "Witch Hunt!" all he wants, but when you're the lyingest liar around, turns out people don't believe you. That's pretty much the takeaway from a Monmouth poll released Thursday that held some pretty damaging news for a guy who took an oath to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution.
- Fully 62 percent of the public believes Trump knew people associated with his campaign tried to mislead federal investigators and/or Congress (only 32 percent say he had no knowledge of this)
- Exactly half the public says Trump actually personally directed his associates to lie about his business ties to Russia and election interference (just 42 percent believe he didn't tell people to lie)
- Among independents, 62 percent say he was aware of dishonesty of his associates, and 49 percent say he personally asked others to mislead investigators.
Another key finding is that over half of the public (55 percent) believes Trump's actions are likely influenced by Russia based on his financial ties to the country—32 percent say that's definitely true, while 23 percent say it probably is.
“After a number of indictments and guilty pleas, there’s a pervading sense that Trump was aware that others were trying to cover up his business dealings or what his campaign may have known about Russian meddling in the 2016 race,” said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute.
The Monmouth poll also found the nation is almost evenly divided (46-47) on whether Russia has kompromat on Trump: 46 percent say this is definitely (19 percent) or probably (27 percent) true, while 47 percent say it is definitely (23 percent) or probably (24 percent) not true.
That's a slightly different finding from a Politico/Morning Consult poll several weeks ago showing 57 percent of registered voters believe it's "likely" Russia has compromising information on Trump. Politico polled only registered voters versus all adults (which Monmouth did). But another difference appears to be that Politico asked if people thought Russian kompromat was either "very" or "somewhat" likely, or alternatively "not likely" or "not likely at all." So where people were given the option of saying it was somewhat likely rather than probably true, as with Monmouth, they were more inclined to answer in the affirmative.
No matter how you slice it, that's a lot of fricking voters who think Trump could be compromised by Russia.