As the “Russia collusion” story appears to be imploding backwards on Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee, a new Rasmussen survey released Thursday shows that 51 percent of likely U.S. voters “believe it’s likely that Bill and Hillary Clinton or their close political associates broke the law in their dealings with Russia.”
Thirty-seven percent of survey respondents believe it is unlikely.
Keep in perspective that Rasmussen isn’t making accusations, it is merely reporting the results of an opinion poll.
The Rasmussen results come as Fox News has reported that the Campaign Legal Center has filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission that alleges Clinton’s 2016 campaign committee and the DNC violated campaign finance law “by failing to accurately disclose the money spent on the Trump-Russia dossier.”
But the polling results could spell trouble for Clinton as it indicates an increasing number of Americans are paying attention to the revelations, and political “spin” is going to be unsuccessful. Clinton may just find out “what difference” a scandal makes.
Rasmussen also reports that 60 percent “continue to believe it’s likely some actions Hillary Clinton took as secretary of State were influenced by donations made to the Clinton Foundation, with 45% who say it’s Very Likely.”
While the numbers are down slightly from a survey taken in August, this still isn’t good news because it shows a majority of Americans are suspicious. Still, the Rasmussen poll shows 29 percent thinking it is unlikely Clinton did any favors for “some of those who contributed to the Clinton Foundation, but that includes only 12% who say it’s Not At All Likely.”
An analysis of the erupting scandal that appeared in Wednesday’s Washington Post is a worthy read. Writer Callum Borchers noted that complaints from the Clinton camp that the media hadn’t used the now-infamous “Trump Dossier” in time to influence the 2016 election were “disingenuous.”
“The Clinton camp left out its own role in the dossier’s creation,” Borchers observed, “as it ripped the media for sitting on information that journalists had been unable to verify. What Clinton and her advisers presented as their judgment that the media had made the wrong call was, in fact, their frustration at having failed to plant negative news reports before ballots were cast.”
If a Republican had done this, it would have been portrayed as a political “dirty trick.” Back in the Watergate days, one of the people involved in campaign shenanigans put a name to this sort of thing: “Ratf—-ing.”
Political sabotage is nothing new, but this time around it could have some devastating consequences. Where some political partisans have complained in the past about “nothing sticking to the Clintons,” as more information about the effort to discredit Donald Trump becomes available, some of the allegations might have adhesive.
