Just over one-third, 35 percent, of individuals believe former President Donald Trump did something overtly “illegal” regarding his current criminal case in New York, according to an AP/NORC survey released Tuesday.
Responding to allegations that Trump “covered up hush money payments to a woman who said he had an affair with her,” 35 percent, overall, said they believe Trump did something illegal. Another 31 percent across the board think he did something “unethical but not illegal,” and 14 percent said he did “nothing wrong,” Another 19 percent said they “don’t know enough to say.”
Predictably, most Democrats, 62 percent, believe Trump did something illegal in this case, compared to just two percent who believe he did nothing wrong and 27 percent who said he acted unethically but not illegally.
Only six percent of Republicans said they believe Trump did something illegal, while 40 percent said he acted unethically but not illegally. Another 28 percent said they believe Trump did nothing wrong, and 26 percent said they do not know enough to say.
Further, 32 percent of independents believe Trump acted illegally in this case, followed by 25 percent who believe he acted unethically but not illegally, 15 percent who said he did nothing wrong, and 27 percent who do not know enough to say.
The survey was taken April 4-8, 2024, among 1,204 adults with a ± 3.9 percent margin of error.
It comes as Trump faces 34 felony charges at the hands of Democrat Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who has accused Trump of falsifying business records concerning a “hush money” payment made to Stormy Daniels. The former president, however, is not being accused of “covering up a sex scandal,” as Breitbart News pointed out.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (Michael M. Santiago/Getty)
The case is not without controversy, as Trump and supporters have bashed the latest case of lawfare against him as nothing more than “political persecution.” Not to mention that New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan has a history of donating to Democrats.
“Let’s remember that Judge Merchan is a Biden donor. Let’s remember that his family has a vested financial interest in this case or … the fact that the case is ongoing,” Jesse Binnall, one of Trump’s lawyers in his civil cases and January 6, said during a recent appearance on Breitbart News Daily, reminding listeners that the case itself is based on the “word of Michael Cohen.”
Judge Juan Merchan (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
“Their entire case is built on a house of cards because these are the words of somebody who’s an admitted perjurer,” he said, noting that lawyers “are having a hard time, at least honest ones, figuring out what exactly the criminal allegations here is.”
“The idea is in New York, if you if you have false business records, then that can be a misdemeanor. And at this point, they’re trying to connect to the campaign finance law in order to upgrade that to a felony. The problem with that is that we have ways of prosecuting campaign finance law in this country. Most of the time, it’s actually not done to the criminal justice system,” he said, noting it is done through a “civil pipe enforcement proceeding through the Federal Election Commission.”
“And what happens in that is you have any one complaint with the Federal Election Commission, the Federal Election Commission can then take it and investigate it and then you have six commissioners,” three of whom are appointed by Democrats and three chosen by Republicans.
And they try to “come up with a decision that is not a partisan decision about whether somebody actually did violate campaign finance law,” he said, noting that it is not a criminal proceeding.
The Federal Election Commission has “not, in this case, actually concluded that these activities were criminal,” he said.
“You’ve actually had a lot of former federal election commissioners come out and say, ‘What President Trump has been accused of here is not criminal.’ And these are the people that are actually experts in campaign finance law. You know, likewise, sometimes the Department of Justice, campaign finance law, federal campaign finance law is a federal crime. The Department of Justice can go out and prosecute campaign finance law. They haven’t done that here, either,” he said. “Again, because there was no federal crime.”
“So instead, you got Alvin Bragg, who, of course, campaigned on going after Donald Trump, has tried to do some a number of gymnastics in order to bring this particular criminal lawsuit based on this very, very odd theory that having a nondisclosure agreement is a violation of campaign finance law, which is simply not true,” he added.
