http://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/robert-spencer/2022/08/20/new-poll-most-americans-believe-the-fbi-is-now-bidens-gestapo-n1622668
By Robert Spencer
PJ Media
August 20, 2022
Up until recently, it would have been unthinkable, but one of the numerous catastrophic consequences of the Biden administration’s reign of terror has been a plummeting of trust in once-revered institutions. Former Trump advisor Roger Stone said it in November 2021: “We have a group of politicized thugs at the top of the FBI who are using the FBI … as Joe Biden‘s personal Gestapo.”
After the FBI’s raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago, Rasmussen Reports surveyed Americans regarding their attitude toward the FBI and reported on Thursday that “a majority (53%) of voters now agree with Stone’s statement — up from 46% in December — including 34% who Strongly Agree.” That’s an extraordinarily severe credibility problem for the FBI. But will they do anything to correct this impression? Almost certainly not.
Rasmussen noted that their “new national telephone and online survey” found that “44% of Likely U.S. voters say the FBI raid on Trump’s Florida home made them trust the FBI less, compared to 29% who say it made them trust the bureau more. Twenty-three percent (23%) say the Trump raid did not make much difference in their trust of the FBI.”
The news isn’t all bad for the bureau that the overwhelming majority of Americans once regarded as impervious to corruption and above the political fray. Despite all that Merrick Garland, Christopher Wray, the Steele Dossier, and the undercover agent-laden (if not undercover agent-driven) plot against Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, as well as all the unresolved questions about FBI agents’ involvement in the Jan. 6 non-insurrection, have done to damage the FBI’s reputation, half of the surveyed voters still “have a favorable impression of the FBI, including 26% who have a Very Favorable view of the bureau.”
It’s hard not to wonder what planet these people are on, now that the Russian collusion business has been definitively exposed as a hoax. On the other hand, Peter Strzok is still claiming that Trump has a Russian passport hidden away in Moscow, so you know what they say, there’s one born every minute.
Meanwhile, back on Planet Earth, “forty-six percent (46%) now view the FBI unfavorably. including 29% who have a Very Unfavorable impression of the bureau.” The only real question here is why those numbers are still so low, but the Rasmussen survey does indicate that Americans are catching on to how corrupt and politicized Biden’s handlers’ FBI has become: “Fifteen percent (15%) of voters believe FBI Director Christopher Wray is better than most of those who held the job before him, while twice as many (30%) think Wray is worse than most of his predecessors.”
That’s good, although Wray’s total corruption of the bureau calls into question the conduct of his predecessors in ways it has never been questioned before: did the FBI really dig up all that dirt on Martin Luther King, Jr., for example, or did rogue feds cook it all up themselves? We may never know. But for over a third of the electorate, all is well, and Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. and company are still as unimpeachable as ever: “Thirty-eight percent (38%) think Wray’s performance is about the same as most previous FBI directors, and another 18% are not sure.”
Meanwhile, Democrats, heedless of the fact that a rogue, lawless authoritarian government could one day turn on them, are still popping the corks over the Mar-a-Lago raid: “Approval of the FBI, including its raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, is highest among Democratic voters. Seventy-five percent (75%) of Democrats now have a favorable opinion of the FBI, up from 63% in December. Only 30% of Republicans now view the FBI favorably, down from 38% in December; nearly half (49%) of GOP voters now have a Very Unfavorable impression of the FBI.” Independents are getting disenchanted with the feds, also: “Among voters not affiliated with either major party, 45% have a favorable impression of the FBI and 50% view the bureau unfavorably.”
These results are tied directly to the raid itself: “Fifty percent (50%) of Democrats say the FBI’s recent raid on Trump’s home made them trust the FBI more, but 70% of Republicans say the Mar-a-Lago raid made them trust the FBI less. Among unaffiliated voters, 46% say the raid on Trump made them trust the FBI less, while 18% said it made them trust the FBI more and 29% say the Trump raid did not make much difference in their trust of the FBI.” Half the Democrats say they trust the FBI more now that it raided Trump’s house; it will be interesting to see how many feel the same way when some of those 87,000 new and armed IRS agents come knocking.
The support for the idea that FBI agents are now Old Joe’s enforcer squad was also sharply divided along party lines: “Seventy-six percent (76%) of Republicans agree with Roger Stone’s quote about the FBI leadership using the bureau as ‘Joe Biden‘s personal Gestapo,’ while 57% of Democrats disagree. Among unaffiliated voters, 49% agree with the ‘Gestapo’ quote, 38% disagree and another 14% are not sure.”
Will the FBI ever get its reputation back? It will on the day that it starts administering impartial justice, as Merrick Garland boasted that it did. But that day doesn’t look as if it’s going to come around anytime soon.
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