The U.S. justice system is based on the presumption of innocence until proven guilty, but that is lost on a majority of Americans with regard to President Donald Trump and the political investigations failing to find proof of wrongdoing, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.
Just 29 percent of Americans see the Mueller report as having cleared the president, while 40 percent do not believe he has been cleared and another 31 percent is unsure.
Ostensibly, President Trump is guilty by political accusation – and not "exonerated" by 71 percent of adults.
"The public is still in a wait-and-see view of this investigation and what it means for Trump," Jeff Horwitt of Democratic firm Hart Research, which conducted the poll along with Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies, according to NBC News.
That is despite special counsel Robert Mueller's report, as summarized last Sunday by Attorney General William Barr, "did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election," nor was there sufficient evidence to pursue obstruction of justice claims against the president.
That will not stop the president's political opponents from trying, nor the public from believing otherwise, per the poll results.
The pollsters surmise the poll's findings are a result of messaging in the media, which has made the investigations and accusations far greater news than the actual conclusions of the special counsel. Just 39 percent has heard "a lot" about the Mueller findings, according to the poll.
"However substantial this event was in the Washington, D.C., community and maybe our political culture, it was not an event that captured the American public," GOP pollster McInturff said, per NBC News.
The NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll was conducted March 23-27 among 1,000 adults and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
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