The majority of U.S. voters accept special counsel Robert Mueller’s conclusion that President Trump did not conspire with Russia, and believe that congressional Democrats should do the same, according to a Harvard CAPS/Harris poll released exclusively to The Hill.
Sixty-four percent said that they accept Mueller’s conclusion, the survey found, while 61 percent said they agree with the finding.
{mosads}Conversely, 36 percent of respondents rejected Mueller’s conclusion and 39 percent said they disagreed with it.
The poll, fielded in the days after Attorney General William Barr released a summary of Mueller’s long-awaited report, also found that a significant majority of voters – 68 percent – believe that Democratic lawmakers should accept the special counsel’s conclusion.
Less than a third – 32 percent – said that congressional Democrats should contest the probe’s findings and launch another investigation into whether the Trump campaign conspired with Moscow, according to the survey.
“Americans are overall accepting the findings of Robert Mueller and putting investigations in the rear view mirror,” Mark Penn, the co-director of the Harvard CAPS/Harris poll, said.
Mueller’s report, the product of nearly two years of investigating, was delivered to Barr late last week.
On Sunday, the Justice Department released a summary of the report, declaring that the special counsel was not able to establish that Trump or his members of his campaign conspired with the Russian government to sway the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.
The conclusion lifted a cloud that had loomed over Trump’s presidency since its earliest days.
But Barr also noted that the investigation did not exonerate Trump on the question of whether he obstructed justice in relation to the Russia probe.
Barr said he ultimately determined, along with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, that the president should not be charged with obstruction.
Sixty-one percent of voters surveyed in the Harvard CAPS/Harris poll said that they accept that conclusion on obstruction of justice, while 39 percent rejected it.
Meanwhile, 65 percent of respondents said that congressional Democrats should accept the findings. Thirty-five percent said they believe lawmakers should challenge the conclusion and conduct another investigation.
Mueller’s report has not yet been made public and Democrats have called on Barr and the Justice Department to release the full report.
A majority of voters – 51 percent – said they want the Justice Department to make Mueller’s report public in its entirety, while slightly less than one third – 32 percent – said that officials should release it only after redacting classified information and secret grand jury information.
Only 7 percent do not believe the report should be released in any form.
Pursuing additional investigations into Trump could have political ramifications for Democrats, according to the survey.
Forty-one percent of respondents said that they would be less likely to vote for Democrats if the party’s lawmakers “launch scores of new investigations,” while only 20 percent said they would be more likely to do so.
Thirty-nine percent said that such investigations would have no effect on their votes.
The special counsel’s conclusion also appears to have had little effect on Trump’s political prospects.
A slight majority of respondents – 54 percent – said that the investigation’s findings do not affect their support for Trump, while 22 percent said that the conclusion makes them less likely to back the president.
Twenty-four percent said they are now more likely to support him, according to the poll.
The Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll online survey of 1,437 registered voters was conducted from March 25-26.
The Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll is a collaboration of the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard University and The Harris Poll. The Hill will be working with Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll throughout 2019.
Full poll results will be posted online later this week. The Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll survey is an online sample drawn from the Harris Panel and weighted to reflect known demographics. As a representative online sample, it does not report a probability confidence interval.