New Poll Shows That Less Than 40% of Republicans Hold Favorable View of FBI

In recent months, conservative media and Trump loyalists in Washington have grown louder and louder in their disdain for the Mueller investigation and have targeted the FBI and Department of Justice in an effort to discredit the Russia probe. They’ve fed distrust of these institutions by alleging an anti-Trump Deep State exists that is trying to undermine the president at every turn.

With the release of the controversial Nunes memo marking the culmination of these efforts — and the president helping feed into conservatives’ anti-FBI attitude with his tweets and comments — it appears that the “law and order” party now solidly disapproves of federal law enforcement. Per a new SurveyMonkey poll for Axios, not even 40 percent of Republicans see the FBI in a favorable light.

According to the survey, which was conducted February 1 and 2, only 38 percent of Republicans have a favorable view of the FBI. Meanwhile, 47 percent think of the bureau unfavorably. Comparatively, Democrats have a very positive opinion of the FBI — 64 percent view the organization favorably with only 14 percent holding a negative view of it. A plurality of independents (49 percent) have a positive opinion of the FBI compared to 28 percent who see it unfavorably.

Axios made this observation about the poll results:

The stark new Republican skepticism of the FBI means that Trump has succeeded in preemptively undermining the findings of special counsel Bob Mueller.

This poll accompanies reports that Trump’s attacks on the FBI are creating a difficult environment and overwhelming concern at the bureau. One now-former FBI agent wrote a New York Times op-ed explaining why he had to leave his job. And both the Washington Post and New York Times have detailed stories out this weekend on the president’s war on law enforcement.

[image via Shutterstock]

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Follow Justin Baragona on Twitter: @justinbaragona

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