--- title: Most Americans Think President Trump Is Trying To Obstruct The Russia Investigation description: More than half of Americans think President Trump has tried to obstruct the investigation into his ties to Russia, according to a new poll. canonical: https://time.com/5066830/donald-trump-russia-investigation-poll/ author: Tessa Berenson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-12-15T19:19:38.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T18:35:44.290Z article:section: Politics og:title: Most Americans Think President Trump Is Trying to Obstruct the Russia Investigation og:description: According to a recent poll. og:url: https://time.com/5066830/donald-trump-russia-investigation-poll/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf1aceff5cf1d9660/6988f497656a3f4e1abd2cba/gettyimages-888701696.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5438 og:image:height: 3059 og:image:alt: President Donald Trump og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Most Americans Think President Trump Is Trying to Obstruct the Russia Investigation twitter:description: According to a recent poll. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf1aceff5cf1d9660/6988f497656a3f4e1abd2cba/gettyimages-888701696.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Poll: Most Americans Think President Trump Is Trying to Obstruct the Russia Investigation > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters.  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Dec 15, 2017 7:19 PM UTC  President Donald Trump speaks before a swearing in ceremony for the new Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, DC on Friday, Dec. 08, 2017. President Donald Trump speaks before a swearing in ceremony for the new Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, DC on Friday, Dec. 08, 2017. Jabin Botsford—The Washington Post  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Dec 15, 2017 7:19 PM UTC More than half of Americans think President Trump has tried to obstruct the investigation into his ties to Russia, according to a [new poll](http://www.apnorc.org/PDFs/AP-NORC%20December%202017/AP%20Custom%20Poll%20Topline%20December%5FRussia.pdf). A recent [AP-NORC poll](http://www.apnorc.org/projects/Pages/Americans-Assess-the-Progress-of-the-Russia-Investigation.aspx) found that 63% of Americans think Trump has attempted to impede or obstruct the Russia investigation. But it also found that fewer than half of Americans think he has done something illegal with Russia: 40% think he did something illegal, while 32% think he has done something unethical but not illegal, and 25% think he hasn’t done anything wrong. Regardless, many doubt that the Russia investigations will be unbiased. Just 26% of Americans are confident that the Justice Department investigation will be fair and impartial, and even fewer — 13% — feel that way about the congressional probe. The confidence in the Justice Department inquiry has increased among Democrats but decreased among Republicans since June. The AP-NORC poll surveyed 1,020 adults from Dec. 7-11 from a representative sample of the U.S. population. The margin of error is plus or minus 4.3 percentage points. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5066830/donald-trump-russia-investigation-poll/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5066830/donald-trump-russia-investigation-poll/"},"headline":"Poll: Most Americans Think President Trump Is Trying to Obstruct the Russia Investigation","datePublished":"2017-12-15T19:19:38.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T18:35:44.290Z","description":"More than half of Americans think President Trump has tried to obstruct the investigation into his ties to Russia, according to a new poll.","url":"https://time.com/5066830/donald-trump-russia-investigation-poll/","keywords":["White House","russia","Polling","Donald Trump","onetime","president trump"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf1aceff5cf1d9660/6988f497656a3f4e1abd2cba/gettyimages-888701696.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Tessa Berenson","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf1aceff5cf1d9660/6988f497656a3f4e1abd2cba/gettyimages-888701696.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"President Donald Trump","caption":"President Donald Trump","creditText":"Jabin Botsford—The Washington Post","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/white-house/","name":"White House"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5066830/donald-trump-russia-investigation-poll/","name":"Poll: Most Americans Think President Trump Is Trying to Obstruct the Russia Investigation"}}]}] ```