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Nearly half of Americans still think Trump colluded with Russia: Poll

US President Donald Trump (R) speaks to the media while flanked by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell after a Senate Republican weekly policy meeting at the US Capitol March 26, 2019. (AFP photo)

Nearly half of all Americans still believe US President Donald Trump colluded with Russia to increase his chances of winning in the 2016 presidential election, according to a new poll, despite a report by US Special Counsel Robert Mueller clearing Trump of that allegation.

According to a summary of the report released by US Attorney General William Barr on Sunday, Mueller found no evidence that the Trump election campaign had conspired with Moscow in the 2016 election, but did not exonerate the president on the question of obstructing justice in the federal probe.

Mueller submitted his confidential report to Barr on Friday.

Some 48 percent of US voters said they still believed “Trump or someone from his campaign worked with Russia to influence the 2016 election,” the Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Tuesday showed.

And 53 percent said, “Trump tried to stop investigations into Russian influence on his administration,” the survey found.

Only 9 percent of the respondents said Mueller’s report had changed their thinking about Trump’s ties to Russia and 57 percent said they wanted to see the entire report.

Democratic Party lawmakers in Congress have also called on Barr to release the full report.

Also, 38 percent of all adults support efforts by Democratic leaders to continue the Russia investigation in Congress, according to the poll.

Trump celebrated the summary of the Mueller report as a “complete and total exoneration” and vowed to strike back with investigations of his own against unnamed political enemies, whom he believes are guilty of “evil” and “treasonous things.”

Mueller, a former FBI director, had been examining since May 2017 whether Trump’s election campaign colluded with Moscow to try to influence the 2016 presidential election and whether the Republican president later unlawfully tried to obstruct his investigation.

US intelligence agencies claim Moscow meddled in the election with a campaign of email hacking and online propaganda aimed at sowing discord in the United States, hurting Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and helping Trump.

Both Trump and Russia have repeatedly denied the accusations. Trump has sought to discredit the investigation, calling it a “witch hunt” and accusing Mueller of conflicts of interest.


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