Six in 10 American voters do not want President Trump to pardon either of his former associates, Paul Manafort or Michael Cohen, according to a poll released Friday evening.
The Aug. 23-24 survey found exactly 60 percent said it would be “inappropriate” for Trump to give Manafort, his former campaign chairman, a get out of jail free card, according to Morning Consult. Slightly more — 62 percent — thought it was inappropriate to do so in the case of Cohen, Trump’s longtime personal lawyer.
The poll was taken in the two days after both men’s big days in court.
Manafort was convicted Tuesday in an Alexandria, Va., court on eight felony counts of tax fraud, failure to file a report of foreign bank and financial accounts, and bank fraud. The judge declared a mistrial on 10 other charges the jury could not decide on.
Cohen pleaded guilty in a Manhattan court Tuesday to eight counts of campaign finance violations and tax evasion for crimes that include how he paid porn star Stormy Daniels to stay quiet about a sexual affair she claimed to have had with Trump more than a decade ago.
Republicans were more supportive of Trump pardoning Manafort than Cohen. Exactly 20 percent support a pardon for Manafort compared with 16 percent who said the same about Cohen.
Forty-five percent of voters oppose pardoning Cohen while only 38 percent said the same about Manafort.
Trump has tweeted on several occasions that Manafort has been treated unfairly in Robert Mueller’s special counsel probe. However, Trump has not defended Cohen, who said this week he plans to publicly divulge information about Trump if he can raise $500,000 in financial support.
Voters are evenly split on Trump’s future. Exactly 42 percent said Congress should move to impeach the GOP leader while the same proportion said lawmakers should do no such thing.
The online survey was taken among 1,564 registered voters nationwide and had a 2 percent margin of error.
[Opinion: Here’s why Trump will probably pardon Paul Manafort one year from now]
