Most Americans Believe Mueller Didn’t Exonerate Trump Based On Barr’s Memo, ‘CNN’ Poll Says

Donald Trump and the White House were quick to claim “total exoneration” after Attorney General William Barr summarized the Mueller report in a memo he wrote to the Congress, but it appears that the American public is not entirely trusting of the president.

According to a new CNN poll, 56 percent of Americans believe that Trump has not been exonerated by Mueller, but what has been revealed by Barr shows there is not enough evidence to prove collusion. Forty-three percent of the American public, however, believe Donald Trump when he says he has been fully exonerated by the special counsel.

Although Barr’s memo claimed that Mueller couldn’t find the evidence to establish that the Trump campaign “conspired or coordinated with” Russia to undermine the 2016 presidential elections, the poll found that Americans view the issue through a partisan lens. While 77 percent of Republicans believe that the president has been fully exonerated, 80 percent of Democrats say that he hasn’t been exonerated. As far as Independents are concerned, 58 percent of them say that Trump hasn’t been exonerated.

There seems to be a surprising subtext to this poll, with people who said they had read “a great deal” about the special counsel investigation over the last two years generally viewing Barr’s memo as an exoneration for the president. Among this group, 56 percent of the people said that Trump has been exonerated.

The results of the poll also point us towards the fact that public opinion seems to have altered little with the release of Barr’s memo on the Mueller report. Before the special counsel submitted his report to the DOJ, 43 percent of Americans believed that Trump had done nothing wrong. That’s only a deviation of one percent from the current poll.

Anyone sense a pattern? In new @CNN poll 43% say #Mueller report exonerated Trump. In 2016, Trump won 46% of vote. In 2018, Rs won 45% of House vote & 45% approved of Trump in exits. Roughly 40% approve of #borderwall & emergency. That's his audience. https://t.co/kDOF9Iou4u

— Ronald Brownstein (@RonBrownstein) March 27, 2019

Meanwhile, Americans also had a lot to say about the continued congressional investigations against Trump and his aides. Six in 10 Americans said that the congressional inquiries must continue, while 43 percent of those polled said that all investigations must cease immediately with the release of Barr’s memo. As reported, the partisan divide is stark here too, with only 17 percent of Republicans agreeing to further congressional inquiries, while only one in 10 Democrats believes that they must cease.

More than two years into the Trump presidency, the mood of the electorate is difficult to gauge, but it would not be an overstatement to say that Trump’s core base of supporters is rallying firmly behind him as he prepares to take on a wildly different Democratic field in the next elections.