Most Americans want Hillary indicted for email scandal – poll
Over half of American voters surveyed in a recent poll disagree with the FBI’s decision not to prosecute Hillary Clinton over her emails scandal.
A survey of 1,000 likely voters was conducted on October 18 and 19 by the polling company Rasmussen Reports. Voters were asked whether they agreed with the FBI’s decision not to file criminal charges against Hillary Clinton, despite acknowledging that she had been reckless and potentially exposed classified information to hostile countries. The results were released on Friday.
Out of the voters surveyed, 65 percent broadly agreed that Clinton had broken the law by storing confidential emails on her private server, but only 53 percent believe the FBI should have filed charges, while 39 percent agreed with the decision not to. When split between Republican and Democratic voters, the survey found that 85 percent of Clinton supporters stood by the FBI’s decision not to prosecute.
However, 92 percent of Donald Trump supporters disagreed, mirroring the opinion of their candidate, who has been vocal in criticizing Clinton for deleting 30,000 of her emails rather than handing them over to the FBI. At one point, he even promised his rival that she “would be in jail.”
“If I win,” Trump said at the presidential debate held on October 9, “I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation.”
When asked if the emails scandal was important to their vote, 70 percent of survey respondents replied that it was, out of which 49 percent said that it was very important. Only 27 percent said the issue was not important to them at all.
According to the latest data from Rasmussen Reports, Donald Trump is slightly ahead with a 43 to 41 percent margin over Hillary Clinton. However, other polls have put Hillary in the lead.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted from October 14 to 20 gave Hillary 44 percent support, versus 40 for Trump. Rasmussen has been criticized for overestimating the popularity of Republican candidates in the 2010 and 2012 mid-term and presidential elections, and been accused of showing bias towards the GOP.
The 2016 presidential campaign has been an eventful one. In recent weeks, Trump has lost some supporters over remarks of a sexual nature made back in 2005, but has fired back with claims that the election system is “rigged.” If Hillary wins, some 70 percent of Republican voters believe it will be because the election was rigging by Democrats, according to the results of a Reuters poll released on Friday.
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Meanwhile, the Obama administration has accused the Russian government of attempting to tamper with the Democratic campaign, a charge Moscow strongly denies.
