Republicans in agencies about-turn

– Nearly three out of four Republicans believe the FBI and justice department are trying to undermine US President Donald Trump, said 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 US presidential election, allegations that Moscow and Trump have repeatedly denied.

The February 3-5 poll found that Americans were sharply divided along party lines over a federal investigation into potential ties between Trump’s 2016 cam-

New York

paign and Russia, a controversy that has hung over his year-old presidency.

Trump has called the probe a witchhunt and accused the top leadership of the FBI and justice department of being biased against him. The dispute has caused an extraordinary breach between the White House and law enforcement.

Some 73% 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 law enforcement agencies.

Nearly 84% of Republicans said in a January 2015 poll that they had a “favourable” view of the FBI.

Last month, 91% of Republicans said they had a “great deal” or “some” confidence in the law enforcement agencies, compared with 75% who expressed a similar level of confidence in the administration and 47% who said the same about Congress. – Reuters