Nearly 6 in 10 Americans still think Donald Trump obstructed justice, according to a newly released AP-NORC poll. Despite Attorney General William Barr's four-page cover up and Trump's weeks-long "total exoneration" tour, fully 58 percent of the nation thinks Trump interfered with the Russia investigation, while 40 percent do not believe that. In other words, GOP voters and Trumpies believed Barr, but the rest of the population saw Barr's partisan ploy for exactly what it was. In fact, a Civiqs poll last week found that 53 percent of voters think Trump’s Justice Department is deliberately “trying to conceal” information from Robert Mueller’s original report.
Among Republicans, 10 percent more now say Trump is free of wrongdoing (65 this month vs. 55 percent last month) than before Barr issued his report; and 10 percent fewer Republicans say Trump did something unethical, 27 percent, down from 37 percent pre-report.
Other findings:
- 61 percent say the Justice Department has shared too little of Mueller’s report with the public, which suggests that Barr's ploy mostly backfired among everyone but Republicans; 55 percent also say more of the Mueller report should be shared with Congress
- 53 percent want Congress to continue investigating (45 percent do not)
Trump's job approval rating is 39 percent approve vs. 60 percent disapprove in the poll, nearly unchanged since before the report. Importantly, that means that on the eve of at least some of Mueller’s report finally being released, Trump got no real bump from the Barr report—that's a bad sign for Trump.
Now the question is, will Barr's redacted report chip away at any of Trump's support or merely harden both sides of this debate? And in addition, will the revelations steel congressional Democrats for the impending legal battle that is sure to ensue?
