A majority of voters think Democrats are “engaged in lawfare” to knock former President Donald Trump out of the race, according to a new poll.
More than half of voters believe Democrats are “using the government and the legal system in biased ways to take out a political opponent,” according to a recent Harvard Caps/Harris poll.
When asked the question, “Do you think the democrats today are engaged in lawfare — a campaign using the government and the legal system in biased ways to take out a political opponent or do you think the prosecutions of Donald Trump are fair and unrelated to politics?” 58 percent agreed the prosecutions are lawfare, compared to 42 percent who said the indictments are fair. When pollsters flipped the order of the question, a majority (55 percent) still said Trump’s legal woes are a Democrat strategy to take out a political opponent, with 45 percent disagreeing.
When broken down by party lines, between 36 and 42 percent of Democrats agreed that Trump’s indictments constitute lawfare, as did roughly 8 in 10 Republicans. Independents were roughly split on the question.
A similar majority of voters also believe the multiple legal cases that have cost Trump extensive amounts of time and resources make it “impossible for him to be a viable candidate” for president, according to the poll.
Voters also were more inclined to think Trump will “shake” the country up for the better compared to those who believe he is a “danger to democracy,” 56 percent to 44 percent, respectively.
The poll was conducted by The Harris Poll and Harris X in collaboration with the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard University among 2,022 respondents.
Trump was indicted in April by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg over allegations that Trump paid hush money to his then-lawyer Michael Cohen to cover up an affair he had years earlier.
The charges were levied despite the incident occurring more than five years prior, outside the statute of limitations, under a legal theory that even Vox’s Ian Millhiser called “dubious.”
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The Biden administration then indicted Trump in June for allegedly mishandling classified documents — something Biden himself did but evaded charges after a special counsel concluded a jury would not likely find he possessed the “mental state of willfulness” to commit a crime. Notably, the Harvard-Harris poll found that 65 percent of voters think Biden “had classified and top secret materials in his house and his office from when he was a Senator and Vice president, and shared them with those writing his memoirs,” with 62 percent saying he deserves to be prosecuted if true.
Despite feigning ignorance about the DOJ’s 2022 raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, emails show the White House apparently coordinated with the Department of Justice (DOJ) in advance.
American First Legal says the emails they obtained show the DOJ made a “special access request” “via the Biden White House” for the documents they accused Trump of retaining improperly. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) general counsel Gary Stern said via email that “the Justice Department, via the Biden White House, has made the [special access] request.”
America First Legal says the alleged coordination is concerning since “the special access statute authorizes special access requests to an incumbent president only when the records in question are needed for ‘the conduct of current business’ of the White House. Providing documents to the DOJ for purposes of a criminal investigation is not the ‘current business’ of the White House.”
Trump’s team has since alleged in court filings that the Biden administration worked with the National Archives and Record Administration to push for the probe.
The Biden administration again targeted the former president in August, with special counsel Jack Smith charging Trump with conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis indicted Trump alongside 18 others in August for what she claims was an attempt to overturn the election results in Georgia. Willis’ credibility has come into question following bombshell allegations she hired her lover, Nathan Wade, to lead the investigation and used taxpayer money to go on lavish vacations together.
Trump was recently ordered to pay $355 million in a fifth case for allegedly inflating his net worth and the value of his properties. Judge Arthur Engoron infamously lowballed Mar-a-Lago’s worth to be as low as $18 million during the trial for the suit brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James, who campaigned on nabbing Trump.
Engoron found Trump guilty despite no victims or losses reported in the case.
