Most don't think he's in the clear yet on Russia

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March 31, 2019, 8:59 AM EDT
By Carrie Dann

WASHINGTON — Even as the White House claims vindication from the summary of special counsel Robert Mueller’s findings in the Russia probe, the American public does not see a clear verdict about whether President Donald Trump has been cleared of wrongdoing.

According to a new NBC News/ Wall Street Journal poll, 29 percent of Americans say they believe Trump has been cleared of wrongdoing, based on what they have heard about Mueller’s findings, while 40 percent say they do not believe he has been cleared.

But a third of Americans — 31 percent — say they’re not sure if Trump has been cleared. That includes nearly half of independents (45 percent) and about a quarter of both Democrats (27 percent) and Republicans (25 percent) ...

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/poll-after-mueller-summary-americans-are-still-wait-see-mode-n989061

[struggle4progress]

1. Largest share say findings did not clear Trump

BY KYLE BALLUCK - 03/31/19 09:20 AM EDT

... “The public is still in a wait-and-see view of this investigation and what it means for Trump,” Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research, said in a statement. Horwitt’s Democratic firm conducted the poll along with Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies.

“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,” McInturff added.

More than three-quarters of Americans — 78 percent — said they heard that Mueller submitted his final report, pollsters found, but only 39 percent said they’ve heard “a lot” about it.

The survey of 1,000 adults, conducted March 23 to 27, 2019, has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.

https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/436610-poll-4-in-10-say-mueller-findings-did-not-clear-trump

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2. Report findings upend partisan views of probe

By Scott Clement and Karoun Demirjian
March 30 at 6:33 PM

Americans are split over whether House Democrats should continue to investigate President Trump after special counsel Robert S. Mueller III made no determination about whether he attempted to obstruct justice during the inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 election, a Washington Post-Schar School poll finds ...

An overwhelming 83 percent say the Mueller report should be made public in its entirety, and 57 percent say Barr — who described some of Mueller’s principal findings in a letter to Congress this month — has not released enough details about the report ...

Nearly 8 in 10 Republicans say they feel “satisfied” with the investigation’s conclusions, a strikingly positive assessment for a group that widely disapproved of Mueller’s handling of the investigation just last month.

Among Democrats, who long expressed faith in Mueller during the inquiry, 53 percent now say they are disappointed with its conclusions. And while most still approve of Mueller’s efforts, more than 6 in 10 Democrats do not accept his finding on whether Trump conspired with Russia ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mueller-report-findings-upend-partisan-views-of-probe-poll-finds/2019/03/30/55058c98-51b2-11e9-88a1-ed346f0ec94f_story.html?utm_term=.dd771c04fecb

[ProudLib72]

4. What conclusions?

Nearly 8 in 10 Republicans say they feel “satisfied” with the investigation’s conclusions, a strikingly positive assessment for a group that widely disapproved of Mueller’s handling of the investigation just last month.

Seriously, what "conclusions"? I was not aware there were any. No one has seen the damned report except Barr.

[struggle4progress]

5. +

[struggle4progress]

3. Backers still say he didn't collude because his actions were out in the open

Dana Milbank | The Washington Post
Published: 16 hours ago
Updated: 16 hours ago

... The Washington Post's David Fahrenthold, who covers what might be called the Trump flimflam beat, issued his latest installment Thursday with Jonathan O'Connell about the serial exaggerations, omissions and fabrications Trump used on financial statements to lenders: padding Trump Tower with an extra 10 floors, adding 800 phantom acres to a vineyard, puffing up an estate's value by more than $200 million, ignoring debts and inflating his net worth by $4 billion ...

... One of Trump’s statements even came with a disclaimer saying “users of this financial statement should recognize that they might reach different conclusions about the financial condition of Donald J. Trump if they had access to a revised statement of financial condition prepared in conformity with generally accepted accounting principles” ...

Trump's lawyers .. argued that his obvious efforts to thwart the investigation couldn't qualify as obstruction because they happened in plain sight ...

Amazingly, Attorney General William Barr made exactly that point in his four-page summary of the nearly 400-page Mueller report, in which Barr said he would not charge Trump with obstruction. "In cataloguing the president's actions, many of which took place in public view, the report identifies no actions that, in our judgment, constitute obstructive conduct," Barr wrote ...

https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2019/03/31/dana-milbank-trumps/