Many Americans are not buying the consistent claims from former President Donald Trump that he is being unfairly targeted amid the four criminal cases he is now facing across the same number of jurisdictions, including Florida, Washington, D.C., Georgia, and New York.
In polling from the firm Navigator Research that was completed August 21, majorities expressed belief in the legitimacy of all four of the criminal investigations against Trump that have resulted in criminal charges for the former president. For each of the probes, the portion of respondents saying they believed the matter to be “legitimate” was at either 58 or 59 percent. The most recent Trump case was in Georgia, where he submitted for booking on Thursday amid accusations of involvement in a criminal conspiracy to target the state’s election results from 2020. Trump’s mugshot, in which he looks frustrated and furious, was widely shared after he made the journey from New Jersey to Georgia.
Similar results were featured in recent survey findings from Ipsos and Politico Magazine, for whom a majority said they believed the federal case against Trump based on his attempts to stay in power was founded in a legitimate examination of the law. The portion saying so was 59 percent — the exact same portion that said in the poll from Navigator Research they believed the federal case dealing with alleged election interference to be based on a legitimate investigation.
In the Navigator polling, the highest portion from among the four cases also said they believed the federal charges dealing with the election allegations to be “very serious.” That case is now slowly moving towards an eventual trial, with federal Judge Tanya Chutkan — who’s already faced threats — presiding.
Despite any implications and assertions to the contrary from those in the former president’s corner, there remains no real-world evidence of the current president meaningfully involving himself in the handling of any of Trump’s cases. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) recently pushed Georgia’s Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis for information on possible federal connections with her probe into Trump, though the evidence for something substantial just isn’t there.
