Majority in US reject Trump’s immunity claim, including half of Republicans

Seventy per cent of American voters, and 48% of Republicans, reject Donald Trump’s claim to be immune from criminal prosecution for acts committed in office, a new poll said.

In the poll from Ipsos and Politico Magazine, just 11% backed the former president and presumptive Republican nominee’s claim, as expressed in his federal election subversion case that has reached the supreme court.

“The result is a positive sign for the constitutional sensibilities of the American public,” the Politico columnist and former federal prosecutor Ankush Khardori wrote, pointing to a view widely held among law professors when he called “Trump’s argument for immunity … absurd as a matter of law, history and democratic logic.”

But the poll also produced what Khardori called a “sobering” poll result: nearly half of respondents (46%) did not trust the supreme court to issue “a fair and nonpartisan ruling” in the immunity case.

Aided by Senate Republicans, Trump appointed three rightwingers to the court in his four years in power.

The resulting court, tilted 6-3 to the right, has delivered major Republican victories including the removal of federal abortion rights and rulings on gun control, affirmative action and more.

Last month, the court stoked uproar when it said it would hear oral arguments over Trump’s immunity claim.

The decision delayed trial over four charges arising from Trump’s attempt to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election, pushing the likely court date towards polling day this year.

The court also dismissed state challenges to Trump’s place on the ballot under the 14th amendment, a measure approved after the civil war, for inciting the January 6 insurrection.

The supreme court’s approval rating remains at historic lows.

Trump faces 84 other criminal charges: 10 over election subversion in Georgia, 34 over hush-money payments in New York, and 40 over his retention of classified information after leaving office.

Having secured a third successive Republican nomination, the former president is employing delaying tactics on all legal fronts.

In the Politico/Ipsos poll, 59% of respondents said Trump should stand trial in Washington in his federal election subversion case before election day.

Fifty per cent (but only 14% of Republicans) said they believed Trump was guilty in the New York case over hush-money payments to the adult film maker Stormy Daniels, who claims an affair.

That case has also been delayed but is still set to be the first to produce a trial. In the poll, 44% of respondents said a conviction would have no impact on their likelihood to support Trump.

More worryingly for Trump, more than a third (36%) of independent voters said a conviction would make them less likely to vote for Trump in November.