Photo: Justin Lane/Pool via Associated Press More than a third of respondents (35%) are willing to call allegations against Donald Trump of covering up a bribe aimed at silencing former porn actress Stormy Daniels illegal.
Fabien Deglise
11:54 a.m.
- United States
Barely begun, the criminal trial of Donald Trump for falsification of accounting documents which opened Monday in New York, is already casting a shadow over his electoral campaign, with a view to regaining the White House. A significant shadow formed by 50% of Americans who indicate that the ex-president would in fact no longer be fit to sit in the Oval Office, if he were to be found guilty in the coming weeks by the jury, still in the process of training in an American megalopolis court.
This is indicated by a new survey from the NORC Polling Institute at the University of Chicago conducted between April 4 and 8 in a pool of more than 1,200 respondents, jointly with the 'Associated Press, and unveiled Tuesday.
Among voters who identify as independent, 47% say a guilty verdict for the ex-president should also keep him out of the White House, a significant number given the influence what could this group of citizens have on the ballot next November.
Ironically, this historic criminal trial of a former president — the first in the country's history — is the one for which Americans are least convinced of the illegal nature of the crimes with which the populist is accused.
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Donald Trump is accused, among other things, of having falsified documents in order to conceal the payment of money to ex-porn actress Stormy Daniels in the Trump Organization's accounting books. The ploy aimed to discreetly buy his silence about a non-marital relationship he allegedly had with her between 2006 and 2007. The story then threatened to taint his 2016 electoral campaign.
Not illegal for the majority
More than a third of respondents (35%) are willing to call allegations of a bribe cover-up aimed at silencing the ex-actress illegal, while another 31% prefer to see it as behavior outside the ethical and moral framework. However, one in five Americans consider that they do not know enough about this matter to judge it.
Unsurprisingly, Republican voters are the most inclined to exonerate Donald Trump even before his trial, with only one in 10 believing that the former reality TV star has committed an illegal act in this story of paying money to an ex-porn star.
For comparison, almost half of respondents (between 47% and 45%) are convinced of the illegality of the actions taken by Donald Trump in the three other criminal cases supposed to lead the former president and Republican candidate to the next presidential election in other courts across the country. He was accused of attempting to overturn the 2020 vote in Georgia, in order to prevent Joe Biden from winning that state and the presidency of the United States, of haphazard and illegal manipulation of classified documents at his private residence in Mar-a -Lago, Florida, and incitement of insurrection launched by its troops against the dome of American democracy, on January 6, 2021, to stop the certification by Congress of the vote confirming the victory of the Democrats in 2020.
The criminal trial which opened this week in New York is undoubtedly the only one of four which must be held before the presidential election next November. A verdict is expected in about six weeks, well before the Republican National Convention which, next July, should normally formalize Donald Trump's candidacy as candidate of the conservative political party.
It is also the first time in the country's history that the presidential candidate of a major party has been hit with criminal charges.
Donald Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges brought against him. Since ad nauseam he has been saying that he is the victim of a “witch hunt”.
A line of communication that seems to have convinced one in five Americans, who affirm, just as he does the same, that the ex-president “did nothing wrong” in Georgia, in his Florida residence and on 6 January, the poll shows. 14% of respondents support this argument in the case of the money paid to Stormy Daniels.