Poll: Majority says Trump has tried to obstruct Russia probe

A majority of Americans say President Trump has tried to derail or obstruct special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s election interference, according to a new poll.

A Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday finds that just over half of likely voters, 53 percent, believe the president has tried to obstruct or derail the federal probe, compared to 41 percent who say Trump has not interfered.

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When voters were asked whether Republicans in the House and Senate have tried to obstruct the probe, respondents were largely split, with 46 percent saying GOP lawmakers have tried to obstruct the probe and 44 percent saying they haven’t.

Views over whether Mueller’s probe is legitimate are deeply divided along partisan lines, the poll finds. Half of voters, 50 percent, say the probe is legitimate, compared to 42 percent who called it a “political witch hunt,” a description Trump has used. But among Republicans alone, 77 percent view it as a witch hunt, while 78 percent of Democrats view the investigation as legitimate.

Independent voters still support Mueller’s investigation, however, with 54 percent of independents calling it legitimate while 39 percent said it was not.

And despite publication of a House Intelligence Committee memo alleging surveillance abuses by FBI and Department of Justice officials, voters still largely trust the FBI.

Fifty-five percent of respondents said the agency was not biased against the president, and Americans approve 48 to 36 percent of how the FBI is doing its job.

“Despite the beating they’ve taken from the White House, the judiciary and the intelligence communities are considered a lot more trustworthy than the Oval Office and the Fourth Estate,” said Quinnipiac poll director Tim Malloy.

The poll of 1,333 voters nationwide was conducted Feb. 2-5 via landlines and cellphones and has a margin of error of 3.3 percentage points.