Despite Attorney General William Barr releasing a summary of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on the Russia investigation, which found no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, nearly half of Americans believe otherwise.
According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted after the summary's release, 48 percent of respondents said they believed “Trump or someone from his campaign worked with Russia to influence the 2016 election.” This was only 6 percentage points less than last week.
Despite Mueller report findings, almost half of Americans think Trump colluded with Russia: Reuters/Ipsos poll https://t.co/yOhGTYSckm pic.twitter.com/bC0T7gfPw7
— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) March 27, 2019
A majority of respondents, 53 percent, also said “Trump tried to stop investigations into Russian influence on his administration,” which is only down 2 points from last week.
Not surprisingly, the responses were sharply divided along party lines.
Of those who were aware of Barr’s four-page summary of Mueller’s findings, 9 percent said it changed their belief about Trump’s ties to Russia and a majority, 57 percent, want Mueller’s report to be made public.
President Trump has called the findings in Barr’s summary a “complete and total exoneration” while Democrats have insisted investigations in Congress will continue.
“It’s a shame that our country had to go through this. To be honest, it’s a shame that your president has had to go through this,” Trump told reporters over the weekend.
“This was an illegal takedown that failed and hopefully somebody’s going is to be looking at the other side,” the president added. “So it’s complete exoneration. No collusion, no obstruction.”
The survey of 1,003 adults was conducted on Monday and Tuesday from online responses. Most individuals (948) said they had at least heard of the findings in Barr's summary.