March 6 (UPI) — A poll shows that 65 percent of Americans would prefer a special prosecutor investigate alleged contact between Russian officials and President Donald Trump‘s campaign associates.
In the CNN/ORC poll released Monday, 65 percent said an independent special prosecutor should be appointed, 32 percent said U.S. Congress is capable of handling the investigation and 3 percent had no opinion.
The poll comes in response to reports that several associates in Trump’s campaign for the U.S. presidency had contact with Russians, including Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak despite testifying under oath that he never met with Russian officials before or after the election.
On whether Americans were concerned about reports that people associated with Trump’s campaign had contact with suspected Russian operatives, 37 percent said they were very concerned, 18 percent said they were somewhat concerned, 17 percents said they were not too concerned and 28 percent said they were not concerned at all. Americans’ concern is closely tied to partisanship, as 71 percent of Democrats said they are very concerned, while 54 percent of Republicans said they have no concern at all.
On who should handle the investigation, 82 percent of Democrats said a special prosecutor should be appointed, compared to 43 percent of Republicans and 67 percent of independents who said the same.
Last week, Sessions recused himself from being involved in any future investigations into possible Russian meddling in the presidential election.
The survey also shows 34 percent of Americans call Russia a very serious threat, up from 21 percent in May — prior to widespread allegations of Russian interference in the U.S. election when 30 percent of Republicans then called Russia a deep threat compared to 15 percent of Democrats.
The latest poll shows 51 percent of Democrats consider Russia a very serious threat, compared to 24 percent of Republicans who say the same.
The CNN/ORC poll, which has a 3 percent margin of error, was conducted from Wednesday through Saturday on a random sample of 1,025 adults.
