Poll: Most Americans trust Mueller, Dems in Trump probes

Most Americans have confidence in special counsel Robert Mueller and congressional Democrats, as both investigate aspects of President Trump and his administration, according to a new Hill-HarrisX poll.

The survey, released Monday, found that 19 percent of registered voters trust Mueller the most, followed by 10 percent who chose Democrats. Twenty eight percent of respondents said they trust the special counsel and Democratic lawmakers equally.

Fifty-seven percent said they trusted Mueller and Democrats, while 43 percent said they didn’t trust either of them. That figure is in line with the 45 percent of registered voters who approved of Trump’s job performance in a recent Hill-HarrisX poll.

“I think that a lot of Americans out there just don’t care that much about these investigations. Now, if the investigation uncovered something real and concrete and clear, that would absolutely make a difference, including for a certain set of pivotal voters in Trump’s coalition,” Emily Ekins, director of polling at the Cato Institute told Hill.TV on Monday. “Surveys have shown that they would turn against him. But without that clear evidence, what we’re seeing in the polls is that a lot of people actually don’t have strong opinions about the key players in these investigations.”

The majority of GOP voters — 67 percent — said in the Hill-HarrisX poll that they don’t trust the special counsel or congressional Democrats to investigate Trump. Seventeen percent trusted Mueller more and 3 percent picked Democrats, and 13 percent said they trusted both.

Independent voters were divided. Fifty percent said they did not have confidence in Mueller’s office or congressional Democrats, while 27 percent said they trusted both. Eighteen percent preferred the special counsel’s office, and 5 percent trusted Democrats more.

Democratic voters were overwhelmingly likely to have confidence in Mueller and their party’s lawmakers. Forty-four percent said they trusted both equally, while 23 percent trusted the special counsel more and 19 percent preferred congressional Democrats.

Older respondents were least likely to have faith in the congressional and special counsel inquiries. A 52 percent majority of voters between the ages of 50 and 64 said they trusted neither Mueller nor congressional Democrats, as did 47 percent of voters who were 65 and older.

Thirty-nine percent of respondents between the ages of 35 and 49 said they did not trust Mueller or congressional Democrats to investigate Trump. Voters between the ages of 18 and 34 had even more confidence in the two investigations, with 34 percent saying they did not trust them.

Polling has generally shown that Americans are more supportive than skeptical of Mueller’s investigation since he took over the probe from the FBI in May 2017 after Trump fired the agency’s director at the time, James Comey.

Trump has regularly derided Mueller’s investigation as a “witch hunt,” saying there was no collusion between his campaign and Russia. Mueller has obtained convictions and plea deals of several former Trump aides and associates but has not accused any of them of criminal conspiracy with Russian government actors.

Congressional Democrats have been under pressure from some left-leaning groups to impeach Trump for a variety of reasons now that they control the House. But Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has ruled out impeaching the president at this time.

In a March 13-17 USA Today-Suffolk University poll, 28 percent of registered voters said they supported impeaching Trump. But 53 percent of respondents who identified as Democrats said they supported the action.

The latest Hill-HarrisX survey was conducted March 16-17 among a statistically representative sample of 1,000 registered voters. The poll has a sampling margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.

—Matthew Sheffield

—This report was updated at 3:24 p.m.