6 in 10 oppose

Poll: Nearly 6 in 10 oppose Trump’s use of executive privilege to muzzle witnesses

The president has said he would try to block John Bolton’s potentially damning testimony in the impeachment trial.

By CAITLIN OPRYSKO

As the Senate begins on Wednesday to grapple with the question of whether to call witnesses in President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, nearly six in 10 voters oppose the president’s invoking executive privilege to block new testimony, according to the latest POLITICO/Morning Consult poll.

The new poll shows that just over a quarter of voters, 26 percent, think the president should be allowed to use executive privilege to muzzle potential bombshell witnesses like former national security adviser John Bolton. That’s compared with 57 percent who say Trump should not be allowed to invoke the powers of the presidency to block certain witnesses.

Though the majority opposed to Trump’s invoking executive privilege was largely driven by Democrats (86 percent), that opposition also found a home among 57 percent of independents.

Only 25 percent of Republicans said they did not believe that the president should be allowed to block new testimony by invoking executive privilege, while 52 percent of Republican voters said he should be allowed.

Frustration among voters likely stems from the White House’s universal stonewalling of the impeachment inquiry at every turn, barring House Democrats’ requested witnesses from testifying and refusing to turn over reams of subpoenaed documents and records relating to the inquiry from its inception.

Senate Democrats appeared earlier this week on the verge of securing the 51 votes needed to call witnesses following an explosive new report in the New York Times over the weekend.

The Times reported on Sunday that Bolton alleges in a manuscript of his forthcoming memoir that Trump directly tied a freeze on military aid for Ukraine to the announcement by Ukrainian officials into Trump’s political rivals — the central charge of the articles of impeachment.

Even before the Bolton bombshell, which landed after the survey concluded, the poll found slim majorities of voters in favor of senators accepting new evidence in the trial (53 percent) and calling additional witnesses (55 percent.)

Trump has repeatedly said he would invoke executive privilege to block Bolton’s potentially damning testimony, citing a desire to protect future presidents after Bolton announced he would respect a subpoena from the Senate.

Such a move could set off an unprecedented legal scramble with any number of potential outcomes and could lengthen the impeachment trial further, a prospect Republicans are using to their advantage.

Democrats have looked to squeeze Republicans on the issue of allowing witnesses or voting to clear the president for more than a month following the House’s adoption of the articles of impeachment.

Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, one of the most endangered GOP incumbents, has been at the front of her party’s push for witnesses, along with Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, though neither has indicated they are leaning toward a vote to convict Trump, and only Collins is up for reelection in November. And the White House has reportedly not ruled out that a red-state Democrat like Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona or Doug Jones of Alabama could vote to acquit the president.

Still, the POLITICO/Morning Consult survey found that a not-insignificant chunk of the electorate — on both sides of the aisle — could factor their senators’ vote on impeachment into their voting calculation.

“Vulnerable senators up for reelection are in a tricky situation as they decide how to vote at the Senate impeachment trial,” said Tyler Sinclair, Morning Consult's vice president. “Roughly four in 10 voters would be more likely to vote for a senator who backs removing Trump from office, including two-thirds of Democrats. This compares with 37 percent who say they would be less likely to vote for a senator who backs removal, including seven in 10 Republicans.”

The POLITICO/Morning Consult poll was conducted Jan. 24-26 online among a national sample of 1,992 registered voters. Results from the full survey have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.