A majority of Americans believe that President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey to hinder the investigation into possible ties between Trump’s campaign and Russia, according to a poll released Thursday.
Fifty-nine percent of respondents said it is either very or somewhat likely that Comey was ousted for the purpose of slowing down or fully stopping the FBI investigation, according to the Monmouth University poll.
The poll found that a 50 percent of respondents disapproved of Trump’s decision to dismiss the FBI director, while only 36 percent approved of the move.
{mosads}A 72 percent majority is also convinced that factors other than the administration’s official explanation — that Comey was fired over his handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation — were more important to the ousting. This view is held by 86 percent of Democrats, 72 percent of independents and 53 percent of Republicans alike.
The survey also found that 73 percent of Americans want the Russia investigation to continue.
Trump’s decision to fire Comey drew widespread condemnation from a number of prominent Democrats, who questioned the timing of the president’s move.
The White House, however, defended the decision, arguing that Trump fired Comey because he lost the confidence of the FBI after the Clinton email probe.
Monmouth University Poll surveyed a pool of 1,002 adults between May 12 and 17. The margin of error is 3.1 percentage points.