First poll taken after Mueller report shows majority of voters who've heard about its results say it shows Trump DID obstruct justice
More than half the Americans who have either read or heard about the results of the redacted version of Robert Mueller’s Russia report feel that President Donald Trump obstructed justice.
Of the respondents 53 per cent feel Trump did obstruct justice throughout the duration of the investigation and 47 percent feel there is no grounds for obstruction charges, according to a new Hill-HarrisX poll released Monday.
Attorney General Bill Barr handed over the the redacted Mueller report to Congress Thursday and it was shortly thereafter made public.
While the 448-page report found that there was no collusion between the Russian government and any American, including Trump, his campaign and his administration, Democrats say that the redacted version does support grounds for obstruction of justice charges against the president.
Of those Americans who read or heard about the released report, 53 per cent say it found Trump obstructed justice, and 47 per cent said otherwise
Hare today, gone tomorrow: Democrats are not backing down on calls for impeachment, even though Trump feels Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report 'fully exonerates' him
Even though Mueller's redacted report found no evidence of collusion between Trump and the Russian government, Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren called for Trump's impeachment on grounds of obstruction of justice
77 per cent of Republican respondents in the poll feel that the report does not prove Trump in any way obstructed justice
A bit more than half the respondents – of the 2,004 polled – said that they had either read about or heard about the report’s release.
All American voters, including those who have not read the report or heard of the results, are split 50-50 on whether there was obstruction.
While 77 per cent of Democrats polled said they believe the president can be charged with obstruction of justice, while only 19 per cent of Republicans feel the same way.
The survey was conducted over Easter weekend, April 19-21, which were the three days directly following the release of the redacted report. The margin of error for the poll is 2.2 percentage points.
Share this article
Trump has gloated about the special counsel’s findings, claiming that the product of the almost two-year investigation proves there was no obstruction, no collusion and that he is fully vindicated.
Democrats disagree, and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who is one of the 19 Democrats making a bid for the party's nomination in 2020, called for the commencement of impeachment proceedings against the president.
'Once elected, Donald Trump obstructed the investigation into [Russians] attack. Mueller put the next step in the hands of Congress,” Warren said Friday. 'The correct process for exercising that authority is impeachment.”
MUELLER BY THE NUMBERS
2,578 interviews
Robert Mueller's investigators spoke to 500 witnesses, all of whom could have been charged with lying to the FBI. They ranged from top level figures like Paul Manafort, Don McGahn and Michael Cohen to obscure personalities like George Papadopoulos - and people are the very heat of Trump's inner circle, including Hope Hicks, his former communications director who had worked for him even before he ran for president.
$25 million
It cost U.S. taxpayers $25 million to fund the Mueller investigation as of February, and it was wrapped up by the end of March, meaning the cost is expected to be slightly above that figure.
675 days
Mueller was appointed to begin investigating Trump and his campaign's possible collusion with Russia on May 27, 2017. He handed over his completed report on the investigation to Attorney General Bill Barr on March 22, 2019.
33 indictments
Of the indictments that came out of the probe, 25 were Russian nationals and three were Russian entities.
The other five were Konstantin Klimnik, a former employee of Paul Manafort; Bijan Kian and Ekim Alptekin, both Michael Flynn's business partners; Roger Stone, former Trump campaign official; and Greg Craig, who served for a period as former President Barack Obama's White House counsel.
22 guilty pleas (many from Paul Manafort)
Eight of the pleas came from Trump's former attorney, who cooperated with Mueller's investigation, Michael Cohen. Another 8 came from Paul Manafort for bank and tax fraud.
The rest are individual pleas from Michael Flynn, George Papadopoulos (left), Rick Gates, Richard Pinedo, Alex Van Der Zwaan, and W. Samuel Patten.
One 'golden showers' dossier
The dossier drawn up by ex-British spy Christopher Steele detailed claims of degrading sex acts in Moscow which Trump denied ever happened. It also detailed claims Trump was in the pocket of the Kremlin, and was used to start the counter-intelligence investigation which morphed into the Mueller inquiry. Trump's disgust and anger at what he says is a smear has erupted in public repeatedly. Steele has said his dossier was never verified or supposed to be made public.
'18 angry Democrats'
Trump repeatedly attacked Mueller's team, claiming they were biased. He initially said they were 13 'angry Democrats' running the 'witch hunt' but later upgraded that to 18.
400 pages
The full report is just slightly shorter than its nearest modern equivalent - Kenneth Starr's independent counsel report into Bill Clinton.
Four pages
When Mueller handed in his report, it spawned its own report- from William Barr, the attorney general, to Congressional leaders. It meant Trump's appointee offered the first draft of histoshry, saying Mueller cleared Trump of colluding with Russia and that Barr cleared him of obstruction of justice..
2,800 subpoenas
In his quest for information Mueller's team issued almost 3,000 subpoenas.
19 lawyers
As the probe proliferated, the legal team grew to 19 lawyers. One was Andrew Weissmann, who joined the team after taking a leave of absence from his job leading the Justice Department's criminal fraud unit.
Three of the other lawyers to join Mueller's probe into Trump included Jeannie Rhee, James Quarles and Aaron Zebley. All three are former employees of WilmerHale, a "Big Law" law firm where Mueller had worked.
40 FBI agents
There were 40 agents, intelligence analysts, forensic accountants and other staff from the bureau that assisted with the investigation in some capacity.
107 Trump tweets
Trump referenced Mueller on Twitter 107 times and tweeted about the 'witch hint' – his nickname for the probe – 185 times throughout the duration of the investigation.
One report
There is only one Mueller report but whether you ever see it in its entirety remains unknown. Some members of Congress and their staff will be able to see it without redactions, and the Democrats are already promising an epic constitutional legal battle which is likely to go all the way to the Supreme Court for the public at large to see it.
