Poll: Majority support allowing new evidence at Trump’s impeachment trial
WASHINGTON — As the Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump resumes Tuesday with senators expected to debate how to conduct the trial, a new poll found that a majority of Americans say introducing new evidence should be allowed.
In a Monmouth University poll released Tuesday before the trial got underway, 57% of respondents said House managers should be able to present new evidence. Thirty-seven percent said they should be limited to evidence that was revealed as part of the impeachment inquiry in the House.
The support for allowing new evidence is split along partisan lines, with 87% of Democrats in favor and 24% of Republicans. Fifty-six percent of independents supported allowing new evidence.
As part of a proposal by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., debate over whether to subpoena witnesses or request documents would come after the opening arguments and questions in the trial. But Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said the proposal wouldn’t automatically allow House Democrats to admit their evidence into the record.
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“Under this resolution, Sen. McConnell is saying he doesn’t want to hear any of the existing evidence, and he doesn’t want to hear any new evidence,” Schumer said.
The question of witnesses is one of the most contentious issues in the Senate rules debate. Democrats want to call at least four witnesses, including Trump’s former national security adviser, John Bolton. However, some Republicans said witnesses would be unnecessary.
In recent days, new documents provided by Lev Parnas, an associate of Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, have added to the growing record of the alleged pressure campaign to get Ukraine to conduct investigations that would be helpful to Trump’s re-election. Parnas has been indicted on federal campaign finance charges.
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Americans are split on whether Trump should be removed from office after being impeached by the House of Representatives, according to the poll: 49% are in favor of removal and 48% are opposed.
A slim majority (51%) of Americans believe that top Trump administration officials who refused to testify in the impeachment inquiry should be compelled to testify before the Senate. Twenty-nine percent said they should be asked, but not compelled, to testify. An additional 16% said aides should not be asked to testify at all.
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“Public opinion on allowing new evidence and compelling witness testimony in the Senate trial breaks sharply along partisan lines. But it is interesting that solid majorities in every partisan group would like to see Trump and members of his administration at least asked to appear,” said Monmouth polling director Patrick Murray.
The survey of 903 adults was conducted Jan. 16-20 and has a margin of error of 3.3 percentage points.
Contributing: Bart Jansen