Voters
Call for Special Prosecutor to Investigate FBI
Voters
think a special prosecutor is needed to see if the nation’s top cops have
been playing politics.
The
latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that
49% of Likely U.S. Voters believe a special prosecutor should be named to
investigate whether senior FBI officials handled the investigation of
Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump in a legal and unbiased fashion.
Thirty-one percent (31%) disagree, but a sizable 19% are not sure. (To see
survey question wording, click
here.)
Sixty-two
percent (62%) of Republicans are calling for an outside prosecutor to
investigate the FBI, as is a plurality (49%) of voters not affiliated with
either major political party. Among Democrats, 38% favor a special
prosecutor; 40% are opposed, but 22% are undecided.
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The
survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on January 22-23, 2018 by
Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points
with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports
surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research,
LLC. See methodology.
Voters
by a narrow 48% to 41% margin said in December that senior federal law enforcement
officials broke the law in an effort to prevent Trump from winning the
2016 election.
Seventy
percent (70%) of voters who Strongly Approve of the job President Trump is
doing think a special prosecutor is needed to investigate the FBI. Among
those who Strongly Disapprove of the president’s job performance, only 36%
agree.
Sixty-four
percent (64%) of all voters think Clinton
is likely to have broken the law by sending and
receiving e-mails containing classified information through a private
e-mail server while serving as secretary of State.
Less than three weeks before the
election, most voters (53%) still disagreed with the FBI's decision
not to seen an indictment of the Democratic presidential nominee, but only
44% felt that way after she lost the election.
A
sizable number of voters, including two-out-of-three Republicans, said
last June that former FBI Director
James Comey should be punished for leaking to the media.
Congressional
Democrats say the increasing focus on FBI wrongdoing is merely intended to
undercut Mueller. But 50% of voters consider it unlikely that Mueller’s
investigation will lead to criminal charges against Trump.
Thirty-nine percent (39%) disagree and say it’s likely.
Seventy-two
percent (72%) of Democrats feel the Mueller
investigation into Russian influence in the 2016 election is an
honest attempt to determine criminal wrongdoing. But 54% of Republicans
think it’s a partisan witch hunt.
Additional
information from this survey and a full
demographic breakdown are available to Platinum
Members only.
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The
survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on January 22-23, 2018 by
Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage
points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen
Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion
Research, LLC. See methodology.
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