(The Hill) — A majority of Americans believe former President Donald Trump is being treated differently than most criminal defendants in his hush money case, according to a new CNN poll.
Another recent poll from The Economist/YouGov found that 24% of Americans think the former president is going to be convicted of a crime in the hush money case, 36% said they don’t believe the former president will be convicted and 39% said they weren’t sure.
Trump’s hush money trial began last Monday, marking the first criminal trial of an American president. He has been charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records in relation to reimbursements to his attorney at the time, Michael Cohen, who paid an adult film actor $130,000 prior to the 2016 election to keep quiet about an alleged affair with Trump, which he denies.
The Economist/YouGov poll found that 43% of Americans think Trump should be convicted of a crime in the case, 37% say they think he shouldn’t be and 20% are unsure.
Following the second day of jury selection in his trial, Trump referred to the reimbursements as a “legal expense,” putting some blame on his accountants.
“I was paying a lawyer, and we marked it down as a legal expense — some accountant. I didn’t know,” Trump told reporters. “Mark it down as a legal expense. That’s exactly what it was. And you get indicted over that?
The CNN poll was conducted by SSRS between April 18 and 23, with a sample of 1,212 respondents and a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.