1 in 3 says Trump did not have secret documents at Mar-a-Lago: survey
One-third of adults in a new survey indicated they don’t believe former President Trump had top-secret and other classified material at his Mar-a-Lago estate this summer.
The Marquette Law School poll released Thursday found that 67 percent of respondents said that they believe he did have such documents, although the results varied widely among partisan groups.
Thirty-nine percent of Republicans said that they believe Trump had top-secret and classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, compared to 65 percent of independents and 93 percent of Democrats.
The FBI executed a search warrant at Trump’s Florida property in August, saying agents retrieved some 33 boxes with roughly 100 classified documents.
Trump and his allies have accused the search of being politically motivated, and the former president told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Wednesday evening that he could declassify sensitive documents just “by thinking about it.”
Most adults in the new survey who expressed a favorable view of Trump, regardless of party, did not agree that he had classified documents in his possession, while 8 in 10 with an unfavorable opinion said that he did.
Eighty-five percent of Republicans with an unfavorable opinion of Trump said that they believed he had such documents, compared to a quarter of Republicans who held a favorable view of the former president.
Two-thirds of Republicans polled also said they would like to see Trump run for president in 2024, which is down slightly from July.
The Mar-a-Lago search has led to a flurry of attacks against the FBI and Justice Department levied by Trump and some Republicans.
Only 11 percent of Republicans indicated they had a great deal of confidence in the FBI, compared to 29 percent of Democrats, according to the new poll.
Sixteen percent of Republicans said they had no confidence at all in the FBI, and an additional 25 percent said they had very little confidence, figures that both outpaced Democrats and independents.
The presence of documents with classification markings have further complicated the case.
A federal judge had approved a special master to examine the documents seized from Mar-a-Lago and weed out privileged materials, temporarily blocking the Justice Department from using the documents in their criminal investigation.
But an appeals court on Wednesday granted the Justice Department’s request to continue reviewing the documents with classification markings.
The new poll was conducted from Sept. 7 to Sept. 14 through interviews with 1,448 U.S. adults. The margin of error is 3.4 percentage points.
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