Over half of voters say Trump should be indicted over Jan. 6: Poll

(The Hill) — More than half of U.S. voters say former President Donald Trump should face criminal charges for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, according to a new Harvard CAPS-Harris poll released exclusively to The Hill on Monday.

Just a couple of weeks after the last congressional hearing probing the Jan. 6 attack wrapped up for the summer, voters are split on how the country should move on from the attempted insurrection and how much Trump should be held responsible.

The Harvard CAPS-Harris poll shows 53 percent of voters agree Trump should face a criminal indictment for Jan. 6, but 54 percent of voters also say he should be allowed to run for president again.

Mark Penn, the co-director of the Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll, said the polling indicates that “indicting Trump over Jan. 6 would be an explosively divisive issue in the country.”

“Despite a majority that would indict him, most questions on Jan. 6 split down the middle along partisan lines and it’s not clear they would convict him,” Penn said. “There is far greater support for healing the country over indicting politicians — but Trump is seen as bearing a good share of personal responsibility. “

The House panel investigating the Capitol attack held a series of hearings from June through July that argued Trump was directly responsible for the attack.

Lawmakers presented evidence that Trump attempted to pressure state electors, former Vice President Mike Pence and the Department of Justice to swing the 2020 election in his favor.

The panel also said he inspired the mob that stormed the federal building in a bid to stop certification of the 2020 election and fanned the flames of the attack when he sent out an incendiary tweet about Pence in the middle of the siege.

But 55 percent of voters say the Jan. 6 hearings were not conducted fairly, according to the Harvard CAPS-Harris poll.

After the hearings concluded, the Justice Department announced it was probing Trump’s actions in connection to Jan. 6, an announcement that is proving unpopular for Americans.

Most voters, or 61 percent, see the DOJ investigation and other related probes as politically motivated, the poll shows.

Ultimately, 69 percent of voters say the nation should move on from the Capitol attack, according to the Harvard CAPS-Harris poll. And Trump remains one of the most popular political figures, with 44 percent of voters having a favorable view of him. About 37 percent of voters see President Biden as favorable.

The Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll survey of 1,885 registered voters was conducted June 27-28. It is a collaboration of the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard University and the Harris Poll.

The survey is an online sample drawn from the Harris Panel and weighted to reflect known demographics. As a representative online sample, it does not report a probability confidence interval.