Poll finds declining GOP support for FBI

Approval of the FBI has increased among Democrats and decreased among Republicans since President Trump took office, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll.

GOP approval for the way the FBI is handling its job dropped from 40 percent in January 2017 to 28 percent in 2018, the new poll released on Tuesday found. Democratic approval for the FBI increased from 57 percent to 67 percent.

For Republicans, this marks a sharp change when compared to a 2015 Reuters–Ipsos poll in which nearly 84 percent of Republicans said they had a favorable view of the FBI.

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Overall, 48 percent of those surveyed said they approve of the job the FBI is doing, compared to 36 percent who disapprove.

The poll on the FBI comes as Trump and a number of Republicans have harshly criticized the bureau’s actions.

A memo released Friday by the House Intelligence Committee, after its publication was authorized by Trump over the objections of the FBI, argues that the FBI didn’t tell the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that evidence supporting a surveillance warrant request for a former Trump campaign aide came in part from a source that was partly funded by Democrats.

The poll found that 53 percent said that they believe Trump has attempted to “derail or obstruct” the special counsel investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Forty-one percent said he had not sought to do so.

The breakdown between the parties was significant, with 86 percent of Democrats saying Trump had sought to derail or obstruct the investigation, compared to only 12 percent of Republicans. Fifty-six percent of independents said Trump has sought to derail or obstruct the probe.

Voters were more split on the congressional GOP, with 46 percent saying Republicans were obstructing the probe and 44 percent saying they were not.

Special counsel Robert Mueller does have support for his probe, with 54 percent saying it is legitimate. Thirty-nine percent, however, say it resembles a “political witch hunt.”