A massive share of Democrats would like to see former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton investigated over her potential role in the Russiagate scandal, a new poll has revealed.
Almost three in four respondents stressed the importance of Clinton and her top campaign advisers being probed amid Special Counsel John Durham's inquiry into the FBI's investigation of Trump's alleged links to Russia during the 2016 US presidential campaign.
The respondents who answered affirmatively include 66% of Democrats, 91% of Republicans, and 65% of independents, according to the poll conducted by the TechnoMetrica Institute of Policy and Politics in New Jersey in January.
The survey's results were released after Durham revealed in a new filing that ahead of the 2016 election Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign paid a tech company to "inflitrate" Trump Tower and White House servers.
According to the filing, the goal was to smear Trump by linking him to Russia, which had been accused of meddling in the 2016 election, accusations that Moscow has repeatedly rejected as unsubstantiated.
Durham's motion looked into a potential conflict of interest regarding former Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussman, who has been charged with making a false statement to a federal agent. The ex-lawyer pleaded not guilty to the charge.
The 45th US president reacted by arguing in a statement that Durham's "latest pleading proves indisputable evidence that my campaign and presidency were spied on by operatives paid by the Hillary Clinton campaign in an effort to develop a completely fabricated connection to Russia".
"This is a scandal far greater in scope and magnitude than Watergate and those who were involved in and knew about this spying operation should be subject to criminal prosecution. In a stronger period of time in our country, this crime would have been punishable by death. In addition, reparations should be paid to those in our country who have been damaged by this", Trump added.
Several years ago, Durham was appointed by then-Attorney General William Barr to head a review into the "Russiagate" investigation launched by the FBI in July 2016 to determine if the bureau's probe into the allegations of Trump's "collusion" with Moscow were legal.
This was preceded by the US Justice Department in April 2019 releasing a redacted version of then-Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report summarising the outcome of his investigation into allegations of Trump-Russia collusion and Moscow's alleged interference in the 2016 US election. According to the document, the investigation did not find any evidence of collusion between Russia and Trump's campaign team.
Russia has vehemently denied any claims of interference in the US political system, emphasising that the allegations were made to explain the election loss of Trump's opponent and deflect public attention away from actual instances of election fraud and corruption.