Month: May 2019

Even with growing concern about overreach, majorities want Congress to investigate whether Trump committed obstruction of justice in the course of the Mueller investigation (58%) and to pursue legal action to obtain the full, unredacted version of the Mueller report (61%). The public is divided on Barr’s handling of the release of Mueller’s report — 44% approve and 43% disapprove, with a wide partisan gap.

About two-thirds still say Trump ought to release his tax returns (66%, including 52% who consider it important for the President to do). And most, 54%, say the President is not doing enough to cooperate with Democratic investigations.

The poll finds no change in the share of Americans who say they believe the President ought to be impeached compared with a March survey conducted before the completion of Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Overall, 37% say Trump should be impeached and removed from office, 59% say they do not feel that way. And while most who do back impeachment feel that way strongly (34% of adults strongly support impeachment, just 3% back it but not strongly), the share who strongly oppose it is larger (45% say they feel strongly that the President should not be impeached).

Trump’s job approval rating has not risen significantly compared with last month’s poll, but his standing now is a big improvement over where he stood in January amid a government shutdown. At the start of the year, just 37% of Americans approved of Trump’s job performance, including only 36% of independents. Now, his 43% approval overall includes approval among nearly half of independents (46%), as well as 86% of Republicans and 5% Democrats.

Though his overall approval among Republicans hasn’t moved much since the start of the year, Republican support has become stronger. In an early February poll, 65% of Republicans said they strongly approved of Trump’s handling of the presidency. Now, 77% say the same. Those figures haven’t moved as much among independents (33% now, 30% then) or Democrats (4% now, 1% then).

The positive signs for Trump in the poll may not be directly tied to Americans’ impressions of how Trump fared in the Mueller report itself. About half (48%) say they believe Trump committed obstruction of justice during the course of Mueller’s investigation, 45% say he did not. More still say that the things Trump has said publicly about the investigation have been mostly false (50%), than that they have been mostly true (43%). And 51% say they disapprove of the way the President handled the release of Mueller’s report.

The end of Mueller’s investigation has brought a boost in positive sentiment toward the special counsel. Nearly six in 10 (59%) say they approve of the way he handled the investigation, up from 48% before it was completed, and 48% say they have a favorable opinion of Mueller himself, up from 36% last fall.

The rise in Mueller’s approval stems from a whopping 30-point increase in approval among Republicans (from 20% in March to 50% now) and a 12-point rise among independents (57%, up from 45%), while his numbers softened among Democrats (69% approve now, down from 75% in March). The increase in his favorability rating comes across party lines, though is largest among Republicans.

Public opinion on the investigation itself, however, has held about even with where it was before the release of a redacted version of Mueller’s report earlier this month. About six in 10 (58%) say they think the investigation was a serious matter that deserved to be fully investigated, while 38% consider it mainly an effort to discredit Trump’s presidency. Both figures moved little over the course of the investigation in CNN’s polling.

In one point of partisan agreement over Mueller’s work, 69% think Congress ought to investigate the origins of the Justice Department’s inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 election, including 76% of Democrats, 69% of independents and 62% of Republicans.

A scant 24% of Americans say they have read any of Mueller’s report, 75% have opted not to dive in to the 448-page document, and just 3% report having read the whole thing.

The CNN Poll was conducted by SSRS April 25 through 28 among a random national sample of 1,007 adults reached on landlines or cellphones by a live interviewer. Results for the full sample have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.

Top Democrats immediately called for a swift appearance on Capitol Hill by Mueller himself, in an escalating drama that not only hikes pressure on Barr but could influence the debate in the congressional Democratic Party about impeachment — a step House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been reluctant to initiate.

“The Special Counsel’s concerns reflect our own. The Attorney General should not have taken it upon himself to describe the Special Counsel’s findings in a light more favorable to the President. It was only a matter of time before the facts caught up to him,” House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler said in a statement.

“Attorney General Barr also should not have withheld this letter from Congress for as long as he has. I have demanded a copy from the Department of Justice. I have asked that it be delivered no later than 10:00 tomorrow morning,” the New York Democrat said.

The attorney general is first scheduled to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday at 10 a.m ET — a session that will now take on extra significance and controversy and will have added electricity since several Democratic presidential candidates are on the panel and will be keen to make a splash.

One Democratic presidential candidate who is not on the committee — former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro — tweeted Tuesday that Barr should “resign his position or face an impeachment inquiry immediately” for “willfully” misleading the American people.

New intrigue in Mueller end game

Tuesday night’s stunning developments left Washington digesting an unexpected new twist in the endgame of the Mueller investigation, which, in addition to not exonerating Trump on obstruction, did not establish a conspiracy between Trump’s campaign team and Russia during the 2016 election. Trump has selectively embraced Barr’s narrative about the report to declare, “No collusion. No obstruction.”

Phil Mudd, a former FBI agent who once worked with Mueller at the bureau and is now a CNN commentator, said Tuesday on “Cuomo Prime Time” that it was “stunning” that someone as dutiful and restrained as his former boss had written to Barr to question his summary of the special counsel’s principal findings.

“This is a baseball bat wake-up call. … You cannot underestimate what he is saying,” Mudd said.

According to a source familiar with Mueller’s concerns, the letter from the special counsel’s office came in on March 27. It was first reviewed by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s office and is roughly a page in length.

After reviewing it, Barr called Mueller the following day. Barr said something to the effect of “we’ve been friends for a long time, let’s talk about this,” according to a source with knowledge of the call. The call was described to CNN as polite, but there was clear disagreement.

Justice Department spokesperson Kerri Kupec said in a statement Tuesday that Mueller did not tell Barr that anything in the letter was factually wrong.

“In a cordial and professional conversation, the Special Counsel emphasized that nothing in the Attorney General’s March 24 letter was inaccurate or misleading. But, he expressed frustration over the lack of context and the resulting media coverage regarding the Special Counsel’s obstruction analysis,” Kupec said.

The White House did not comment on the new developments. But Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani told CNN’s Pamela Brown: “Mueller should have made a decision and shouldn’t be complaining or whining now that he didn’t get described correctly.”

Even before the new intrigue over Mueller, Barr’s testimony was part of a building constitutional imbroglio over the attorney general’s performance, which also includes increasing stonewalling by the White House of Democratic investigative efforts and a rush of private litigation by the President to cloak his business history.

The multiple confrontations consolidate around a common theme that is being tested in Congress and the nation’s courtrooms: How much transparency does the President owe Americans?

Like everything in the Donald Trump era, the moment is tortured by angry political divides — one reason why this debate over presidential power will be long and possibly inconclusive.

Democrats see a duty to investigate and constrain, and some even want to remove Trump over what they view as a documented record of corruption and obstruction in and out of office.

“I think the President has escalated the conflict with Congress,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Democrat of Maryland and a member of the House Oversight Committee, told CNN. “The obstructionism that we read about the Mueller report has come galloping off the pages and right onto our front doorstep.”

Republicans, eager for their own political preservation with Trump’s base, view the oversight war as impeachment in disguise and an example of overreach they can exploit electorally.

“Most Americans think it’s over, want to move on,” Senate Republican Majority Mitch McConnell said on Tuesday.

Fight to dominate 2020 election

The strategic battle lines of the fight that will dominate Capitol Hill until the 2020 election are becoming clear.

Democrats believe there is a mountain of evidence to highlight in the Mueller report, even though the special counsel did not establish conspiracy between Trump’s team and Russia and did not draw prosecutorial conclusions on obstruction.

The plurality of falsehoods came from Trump himself. Many experts also believe conduct revealed by the President in Volume Two of the report does add up to obstruction of justice.

Democrats are not just picking over ground plowed by Mueller.

They are also using the power of their House majority to discomfort the President by digging into his past personal and business finances — a crossed red line that infuriates him.

The White House has adopted a position of maximum resistance. It has blocked testimony from key aides and slow rolled demands for documents. The Treasury Department has missed two deadlines to respond to a House committee chairman’s demands for Trump’s tax returns.

The accompanying political strategy with an eye on the 2020 election, is to portray Democrats as crazed by power.

“The harassment of Bill Barr and the disrespect is completely disgraceful,” Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway said on Fox News on Tuesday. “I think it’s outrageous they want to play the system.”

‘Delay, Delay, Delay’

Now they’ve got Mueller’s own words to back up their misgivings about the attorney general.

Barr made reference to the political storm he’s facing over the Mueller report in his prepared remarks, and sought to distance himself from it.

“From here on, the exercise of responding and reacting to the report is a matter for the American people and the political process,” his prepared remarks state. “As I am sure you agree, it is vitally important for the Department of Justice to stand apart from the political process and not to become an adjunct of it.”

In a statement Tuesday, Nadler demanded a copy of the Mueller’s letter and said that the special counsel “must be allowed to testify.”

There doesn’t appear to be similar drama over whether Barr appears Wednesday, but that doesn’t mean the questions won’t be just as contentious from Senate Democrats on the Judiciary panel, including three — Sens. Klobuchar, Kamala Harris of California and Cory Booker of New Jersey — who are running for President.

Another 2020 hopeful, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro, tweeted Tuesday that Barr “should resign his position or face an impeachment inquiry immediately.”

“Attorney General Barr’s actions raise significant questions about his decision not to recuse himself from overseeing the special counsel’s investigation, whether his actions with respect to the release of the report complied with Department of Justice policies and practices and whether he has demonstrated sufficient impartiality to continue overseeing the 14 criminal matters related to the Special Counsel’s investigation,” the senators wrote.

Republicans argue that Barr has provided much more of the Mueller report than he was required to disclose under the law. They say Democrats are simply lashing out at Barr because they are unhappy with the results of the Mueller investigation.

“They didn’t find what they wanted to in the Mueller report, and they now have to make it a sideshow to blame Barr,” said Rep. Doug Collins, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee.

In his prepared remarks, Barr explained he didn’t think it was in the public interest to release piecemeal portions of the report, which is why he says he provided the four-page summary on March 24 and then worked to release a public version.

“I did not believe that it was in the public interest to release additional portions of the report in piecemeal fashion, leading to public debate over incomplete information,” Barr will say, according to the remarks.

While the House hearing is in jeopardy, Barr has been preparing at length for the back-to-back appearances, according to a source with knowledge of the preparations. Barr has been holed up with several senior officials in the Justice Department in his conference room for hours at a time since early last week, the source said, in addition to preparing on his own.

Democrats say that Barr cherry-picked lines from Mueller’s report to make it sound as rosy as possible for President Donald Trump, when Mueller detailed numerous contacts between Trump’s team and Russians and instances where Trump sought to interfere in the investigation.

Democrats are also going to press Barr on the decision he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein concluding there wasn’t sufficient evidence to prosecute an obstruction case, after Barr himself wrote before he was named attorney general that such a case was “fatally misconceived.”

“I want him to explain his decision in the four-page letter and talk about what are the takeaways from the report,” Graham said. “One of the takeaways is that the Russians were heavily involved in trying to influence our election. I think they’re still up to it. See if he agrees with that and try to find ways to defend American election system in 2020 from Russian interference and others.”