Most GOP Voters Say Justice Department Hasn't Been Fair in Handling Russia Probe

A majority of Republican voters say the Justice Department has not been fair in its investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, according to a new nationwide poll.

Fifty-one percent of GOP voters said the Russia probe has not been handled fairly, while 25 percent said it has, according to a Morning Consult/Politico survey conducted Feb. 1-4. Among voters overall, a 39 percent plurality said the DOJ has been fair, while 35 percent said it has not. Twenty-six percent of the 1,985 poll respondents said they did not know or had no opinion. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

The poll also found that a 41 percent plurality of GOP voters expressed an unfavorable view of Special Counsel Robert Mueller -- up 14 percentage points from a poll conducted July 27-29 and matching a high reached last month. In May, the Justice Department appointed Mueller, a former Federal Bureau of Investigation director, to oversee the Russia probe.

Spokesmen for the special counsel and the Justice Department declined to comment on the poll's findings.

Solomon L. Wisenberg, a partner at Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough and a former deputy independent counsel in the Whitewater investigation into then-President Bill Clinton, said by phone Jan. 30 that prosecutors won’t allow public criticism to influence their investigations.

But “at a human level,” he said, it’s natural that prosecutors would be affected by public distrust and by pointed attacks by the president or his defenders.

Cameron Easley contributed.