Most Republicans believe FBI, Justice Dept. trying to 'delegitimise' Trump

[webfact]

Most Republicans believe FBI, Justice Dept. trying to 'delegitimise' Trump

By Chris Kahn

 

U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks on his tax policy after a factory tour of the Sheffer Corporation in Blue Ash, Ohio, U.S. February 5, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

 

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Nearly three out of four Republicans believe the FBI and Justice Department are trying to undermine U.S. President Donald Trump, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Monday, a sharp turn for a party that has historically been a strong backer of law enforcement agencies.

 

Overall, most of the public still believes that Trump or someone from his campaign worked with Russia to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election, allegations that Moscow and Trump have repeatedly denied.

 

The Feb. 3-5 poll found that Americans were sharply divided along party lines over a federal investigation into potential ties between Trump's 2016 campaign and Russia, a controversy that has hung over his year-old presidency.

 

Trump has called the probe a witch hunt and accused the top leadership of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Justice Department of being biased against him. The dispute has caused an extraordinary breach between the White House and law enforcement and deepened partisan rancour.

 

Some 73 percent of Republicans agreed that "members of the FBI and Department of Justice are working to delegitimise Trump through politically motivated investigations."

 

But three in four Democrats said they believed a competing narrative that "members of the Republican Party and the White House are working to delegitimise the FBI and DOJ in the investigation of Russian tampering in the 2016 presidential election."

 

The poll findings appear to reflect the influence that Trump wields among Republicans, who have long reserved some of their highest levels of trust for the country's law enforcement agencies.

 

Nearly 84 percent of Republicans said in a January 2015 Reuters/Ipsos poll that they had a "favourable" view of the FBI.

 

Last month, 91 percent of Republicans said they had a "great deal" or "some" confidence in the country's law enforcement agencies, compared with the 75 percent who expressed a similar level of confidence in the Trump administration and 47 percent who said the same about Congress.

 

'WIN-WIN'

 

Erroll Southers, a national security expert and former FBI agent, said Trump had shown an uncanny ability to shape his supporters' views of the world in a way that benefits him. By hammering at federal investigators, Southers said, Trump was inoculating himself from any political fallout that may follow.

 

"It’s a win-win for him," Southers said. "If he’s exonerated, he wins. If he’s not, he explains that the FBI is corrupt and it's all a witch hunt, and he wins.

 

"And his base will be even more energized."

 

Lloyd Billiter Jr., a retired Texas oilfield services worker who participated in the poll, said he thought the FBI had become too political and "their people have gone astray."

 

Billiter, 64, said he was shocked to hear reports that investigators said critical things of Trump, and he would not believe anything that comes out of the Russia investigation unless it comes with a trove of evidence.

 

"Show me the proof," he said. "I've put them on probation. You have to earn my trust back."

 

Ron Krebs, a foreign policy expert at the University of Minnesota, said people usually looked to political leaders and the media for guidance on how to view issues and organizations they do not know much about. He said public trust in the FBI could further erode unless there was a bipartisan effort in Congress to support the investigation.

 

"The real question is how long this will last," Krebs said. "How long will Republicans in Congress move in lockstep with the president?"

 

But among Americans overall, the latest poll showed that people did not appear to have changed their minds about the Russia investigation.

 

Fifty-two percent of all adults said they believed Trump or someone from his campaign worked with Russia to influence the election and that it was likely "authorities will find evidence of an illegal relationship between the Trump administration and Russia."

 

Those percentages have not changed since the last time the poll asked those questions in 2017.

 

The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted online in English across the United States. It gathered responses from 2,251 adults, including 941 Democrats and 827 Republicans, and had a credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of 2 percentage points for the entire sample and 4 percentage points for both the Republicans and Democrats.

 

(Reporting by Chris Kahn; Editing by Peter Cooney)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2018-02-06

[lust]

The us government lost all credibility as soon as 9/11 happened.

[Silurian]

1 hour ago, webfact said:

Trump has called the probe a witch hunt and accused the top leadership of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Justice Department of being biased against him.

 

Again, the Republicans are eating their own.

 

FBI Director Christopher Wray: Appointed by Donald

Justice Department Head Attorney General Jeff Sessions: Appointed by Donald

Justice Department Deputy Attorney General Rob Rosenstein: Appointed by Donald.

 

So Donald appointed individuals that are biased against him? So either he made a mistake appointing them or was ignorant of the fact that these individuals were biased against him when he appointed them. Seems the old Donald is not so bright after all. I am sure the next appointments will have to swear a loyalty oath to put the POTUS ahead of the American public. That should solve everything.

 

[boomerangutang]

Trump will trash everyone and everything in his vicinity - to keep his fat butt out of jail.  ....except maybe Ivanka, Melania

Those two women should be interviewed by Mueller's team.  Surely his daughter and wife know a thing or two.  Ivanka, in particular, probably knows as much as Flynn or anyone else.  Are they exempt from scrutiny because they're pretty women?

[Emster23]

Trump shows us daily he isn't legit. No need for outside, or inside, help

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

12 minutes ago, Emster23 said:

Trump shows us daily he isn't legit. No need for outside, or inside, help

Ohh...but he's also getting INSIDE help to de-legitimize what was already extremely illegitimate:

 

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/02/white-house-official-called-trump-a-deplorable.html

 

In the news yesterday:

 

Quote

Before joining the Trump administration, the White House principal deputy press secretary, Raj Shah, called President Donald Trump “a deplorable” and referred to the release of the Access Hollywood tape as “some justice,” according to private messages independently obtained and verified by New York.

 

Quote

“Holy sh*t,” a source who advised Trump said, “plenty of people in the West Wing hate him right now. You hear them say things like, I’m serving the country. That’s code for, I hate the f****er.” On the campaign, the former adviser said, “we all thought he was a moron. He’s by no means a stupid guy, but he was such a pain in the ass and stubborn.” Shah declined to comment. A senior White House official said that Shah previously informed “his superiors in the administration” about the messages.

Shah's reported comments in the wake of the Access Hollywood tape release re Trump:

 

Quote

 

“I’m kinda enjoying this, some justice. I honestly don’t think it’s the worst thing he’s done but he somehow got passes for the other acts.”

Shah added, “Trump is a deplorable.”

 

 

[Sir Dude]

Wouldn't surprise me one bit if such departments were anti-Trump and after him. I bet everyone who works in such entities are all politically bias and not neutral...even though they are supposed to be apolitical.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

21 minutes ago, Sir Dude said:

Wouldn't surprise me one bit if such departments were anti-Trump and after him. I bet everyone who works in such entities are all politically bias and not neutral...even though they are supposed to be apolitical.

 

You mean, like all the Republican Mormons in the FBI?

 

Quote

The FBI is traditionally a Republican-friendly institution, and former director James Comey’s handling of the Clinton probe is widely believed to have helped Trump win the White House. When it comes to Mueller, Republican leaders on both sides of Capitol Hill have said repeatedly they have confidence in the special counsel and want the investigation to continue.

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-02/what-the-gop-probe-memo-claims-and-how-that-squares-with-reality

 

What's going on here is a smear campaign by Trump and his minions to try to de-legitimize U.S. law enforcement in order to undermine the current investigation against him using a lot of half-truths laid out in the Nunes memo.

 

Quote

 

Democrats on the House Intelligence panel issued a statement Friday saying “the investigation would persist on the basis of wholly independent evidence had Christopher Steele never entered the picture.”

 

Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, said Friday that the Republicans “cherry-picked” information from McCabe’s testimony, leaving out what he said about the “genesis of the investigation that did not involve the dossier.”

Page -- who denies wrongdoing and said he welcomes release of the memo -- was on the FBI’s radar long before the dossier: In 2013, Russian spies tried to recruit him, according to an FBI criminal complaint filed in 2015.

 

 

Quote

 

Democrat Schiff told reporters Friday that “it is not accurate to say the FBI didn’t make the FISA court aware that there was a political motivation behind those who were funding Christopher Steele’s work.”
 

Democrats on House Intelligence said the GOP description of the warrant application contains “serious mischaracterizations” that are laid out in a still-classified Democratic memo. For one thing, the Page warrant was renewed three times, steps that the former U.S. official said would have required the Justice Department to show the FISA court that useful intelligence had been obtained and an extension was needed.

 

 

[siamike]

9 hours ago, boomerangutang said:

Trump will trash everyone and everything in his vicinity - to keep his fat butt out of jail.  ....except maybe Ivanka, Melania

Those two women should be interviewed by Mueller's team.  Surely his daughter and wife know a thing or two.  Ivanka, in particular, probably knows as much as Flynn or anyone else.  Are they exempt from scrutiny because they're pretty women?

The bad news for your wish is that Under the Federal Rules of Evidence, in a criminal case the prosecution cannot compel the defendant's spouse to testify against him.  But the good news is that the daughter has no such protection, and I think she likely knows where more skeletons are buried then the wife.

[kamahele]

Strange that Republican think that two organizations run by Republicans are trying to delegitimize the Republican president.....

[Mac98]

If law enforcement has any love of country they will "delegitamize" (as if he were ever legit) Trump asap.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

It makes me sad for the United States and its citizens because so many of them, mostly Republicans, seem inclined to believe a political snake oil salesman who's been shown to be basically a pathological liar and an abuser.

 

If you peruse the independent fact-check websites, they're awash in analyses that show basically every time Trump opens his mouth, he's spouting all variety of nonsense that simply isn't true on all kinds of major policy/political issues. And yet a lot of Republicans, such as in the OP poll results here, still believe him. Perhaps because so many unquestioningly believe what they see/hear on Fox (Fake) News...

 

And now in the latest gesture by a man who's clearly not fit to be President, he's suggested in a public speech that the Democrats were "treasonous" because they didn't applaud during his State of the Union speech.

 

Politics is politics, but when was the last time you heard a President of either party refer to the other side as being "treasonous."  Just when you think he can't go any lower, he keeps plumbing new depths.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/05/us/politics/trump-accuses-democrats-treason-market-rout.html

 

 

Quote

 

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Monday accused Democrats who did not clap during his State of the Union address of being un-American and even treasonous. His remarks came in a rambling, discursive speech at a factory in Ohio, during which he celebrated his revival of the American economy as the stock market plummeted by more than 1,000 points.

“Can we call that treason?” Mr. Trump said of the stone-faced reaction of Democrats to his speech. “Why not? I mean, they certainly didn’t seem to love our country very much.”

 

 

Quote

 

“It got to a point where I really didn’t even want to look up too much during the speech over to that side because honestly, it was bad energy,” Mr. Trump said.

“Even on positive news, really positive news like that, they were like death and un-American,” he said, repeating, “Un-American. Somebody said treasonous. I mean, yeah, I guess, why not.”

 

 

[heybruce]

James Comey, the FBI Director appointed by Obama, handed the election to Trump by publicly investigating the Hillary Clinton email issue and publicly re-opening the investigation days before the election, while keeping the investigation of possible Trump campaign links to Russia secret.

 

According to Republicans, Christopher Wray, the Republican FBI Director appointed by Trump and approved by a Republican Senate, is attempting to undermine the Trump Presidency.

 

I'm not sure how to describe this, but it definitely doesn't make Trump or the Republicans look good.

 

 

[Proboscis]

I don't have a political affiliation - I just don't see why the seating arrangement at an early French parliament should decide where I stand on issues.

 

I have also met quite a few Republicans in my time. None of them adhere to "the justice department/FBI are out to get" anyone, let alone Trump.

 

It beggars belief that people will think that the very folks that Trump appointed will turn on him - and I don't believe that informed Republicans believe that for a moment.

 

Instead, there are a lot of journalists, Fox News pundits and others who will mouth this and the uninformed of all kinds will repeat it.

 

Remember that the people from the so-called working class who voted for Trump were also many of the people who voted for Obama. "Send a rocket to Washington and see how they like it" was their view. Unfortunately for them, sending a black guy to Washington as President did not make the sort of changes they wanted. Now they have sent a "billionaire" completely politically incorrect bully, or at least they did not send a woman who always preached to them.

 

These working class people are a lot of things but they are not necessarily die-hard republicans.

[heybruce]

4 minutes ago, Proboscis said:

I don't have a political affiliation - I just don't see why the seating arrangement at an early French parliament should decide where I stand on issues.

 

I have also met quite a few Republicans in my time. None of them adhere to "the justice department/FBI are out to get" anyone, let alone Trump.

 

It beggars belief that people will think that the very folks that Trump appointed will turn on him - and I don't believe that informed Republicans believe that for a moment.

 

Instead, there are a lot of journalists, Fox News pundits and others who will mouth this and the uninformed of all kinds will repeat it.

 

Remember that the people from the so-called working class who voted for Trump were also many of the people who voted for Obama. "Send a rocket to Washington and see how they like it" was their view. Unfortunately for them, sending a black guy to Washington as President did not make the sort of changes they wanted. Now they have sent a "billionaire" completely politically incorrect bully, or at least they did not send a woman who always preached to them.

 

These working class people are a lot of things but they are not necessarily die-hard republicans.

I assume that these are people who identified themselves as Republicans in this poll.  They may not have been Republicans in the past, and may not be in the future, but they are 75% of Republicans now.  And much like evangelicals, who did a complete about-face on morality issues in order to support Trump, they are turning on the country's most prominent law enforcement agency in order to support a man with a long, troubling legal history and no history of service to anyone but himself.

[Jingthing]

Yeah, a significant percentage of Americans don't align with either major party or any party. The article is specifically about affiliated REPUBLICANS. Not people that voted for trump in general.

 

So when you say that a majority of republicans think anything you're saying a majority of a definite MINORITY. Really, not that many people compared to the entire population.

 

http://news.gallup.com/poll/180440/new-record-political-independents.aspx

"PRINCETON, N.J. -- An average 43% of Americans identified politically as independents in 2014, establishing a new high in Gallup telephone poll trends back to 1988. In terms of national identification with the two major parties, Democrats continued to hold a modest edge over Republicans, 30% to 26%."

 

 

[thaibeachlovers]

The resistance should be ecstatic that they have allies at the top levels of the DoJ and FBI. 

[Jingthing]

48 minutes ago, Becker said:

The resistance would be ecstatic if the man-child dropped dead from a heart attack. The fact that there are thinking, rational persons in the DoJ and FBI - many of the Republicans - who can see beyond the MAWA crap should surprise no one.

I think he's the enemy of the people, not the press, but I'd be OK if he just resigns to be closer to his money.

[heybruce]

1 hour ago, thaibeachlovers said:

The resistance should be ecstatic that they have allies at the top levels of the DoJ and FBI. 

Just to give you a little perspective, I'll repeat an earlier post.

 

5 hours ago, heybruce said:

James Comey, the FBI Director appointed by Obama, handed the election to Trump by publicly investigating the Hillary Clinton email issue and publicly re-opening the investigation days before the election, while keeping the investigation of possible Trump campaign links to Russia secret.

 

According to Republicans, Christopher Wray, the Republican FBI Director appointed by Trump and approved by a Republican Senate, is attempting to undermine the Trump Presidency.

 

I'm not sure how to describe this, but it definitely doesn't make Trump or the Republicans look good.

 

It seems you think Trump, the man who hires "the best people", has hired the man who is attempting to undermine him.

[thaibeachlovers]

12 hours ago, heybruce said:

Just to give you a little perspective, I'll repeat an earlier post.

 

 

It seems you think Trump, the man who hires "the best people", has hired the man who is attempting to undermine him.

I've seen zero to the effect that Wray is attempting to undermine Trump.

[metisdead]

An off topic post has been removed. 

[heybruce]

6 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

I've seen zero to the effect that Wray is attempting to undermine Trump.

Really?  Who posted this?

19 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

The resistance should be ecstatic that they have allies at the top levels of the DoJ and FBI. 

 

[thaibeachlovers]

38 minutes ago, heybruce said:

Really?  Who posted this?

 

Gimme strength! Talk about clutching at straws.

[jcsmith]

It's easy to look back at something like Nazi Germany and wonder how people could have bought into this. Polls like this show, people are gullible. They are easily influenced. And when half of America tunes into Fox News, apparently actually distracted by Sean Hannity cutting to a car chase instantly in the very moment when he was forced to admit Trump's wrongdoing... People are easily influenced. The people who supported Trump for whatever reason, many of them will buy into anything that gets put on the table rather than to admit they were wrong.

[heybruce]

8 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Gimme strength! Talk about clutching at straws.

Clutching at straws?  You mean like Republicans who think the FBI, under the leadership of a Trump appointee, is attempting to undermine Trump?

[Briggsy]

It is not surprising when you have Fox and the right wing radio stations banging out the message 24 hours a day that the FBI are involved in covert regime change against Trump. Brainwashing by this method, control of the message, is effective as any dictatorship will tell you.

 

Did you know that the majority of North Koreans think that Americans actually are devils, with horns and tails! Same technique.

[thaibeachlovers]

12 minutes ago, heybruce said:

Clutching at straws?  You mean like Republicans who think the FBI, under the leadership of a Trump appointee, is attempting to undermine Trump?

No. It's pretty certain that some high level agents in the FBI were attempting to undermine Trump. Some have already been "reassigned" or moved to HR, and others are yet to be booted from their positions.

Texts that are promising have just been "discovered", despite being "lost" before.

At the moment it's looking hopeful that some may be spending time behind bars. Depends on whether Sessions will do his job or not. So far, he's been AWOL.

[thaibeachlovers]

17 minutes ago, Briggsy said:

It is not surprising when you have Fox and the right wing radio stations banging out the message 24 hours a day that the FBI are involved in covert regime change against Trump. Brainwashing by this method, control of the message, is effective as any dictatorship will tell you.

 

Did you know that the majority of North Koreans think that Americans actually are devils, with horns and tails! Same technique.

Bit like the anti Trump media banging out the message 24 hours a day that Trump colluded with the Russians despite not a single indictment related to that so far.

[heybruce]

4 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

No. It's pretty certain that some high level agents in the FBI were attempting to undermine Trump. Some have already been "reassigned" or moved to HR, and others are yet to be booted from their positions.

Texts that are promising have just been "discovered", despite being "lost" before.

At the moment it's looking hopeful that some may be spending time behind bars. Depends on whether Sessions will do his job or not. So far, he's been AWOL.

It's certain that two FBI agents didn't like Trump and stated that in text messages.  There is no evidence anyone in the FBI attempted to undermine Trump.  There are suspicions the FBI attempted, and succeeded, in undermining Clinton.  Texts that were "missing" were the result of a phone technical glitch and were turned over as soon as they were recovered. 

 

Wanting there to be a conspiracy doesn't make it so.  Trump and Trumpies need to accept that.  These are law enforcement officers doing their job and putting duty before personal interests.  Something Trump can't understand.

 

How do your suspicions that the FBI, under Trump appointed Wray, is undermining Trump square with Trump's claim that he hires the best people?

 

 

[heybruce]

9 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Bit like the anti Trump media banging out the message 24 hours a day that Trump colluded with the Russians despite not a single indictment related to that so far.

Provide sources.  I don't recall any reputable news sources stating that Trump colluding with Russia has been proven, I only recall these sources reporting on the investigation.