Nearly 80 percent of American voters see a two-tiered justice system, according to a new poll out a week before the FBI raid of former President Donald Trump’s Florida residence on Monday.
The Nationwide Issues Survey conducted by the Trafalgar Group with Convention of States Action between July 24-28 found 79 percent of likely U.S. voters interviewed believe “there are two tiers of justice: one set of laws for politicians and Washington D.C. insiders vs one set of laws for everyday Americans.” Less than 12 percent reported the justice system serves all Americans equally and 9 percent were unsure.
The Trafalgar Group interviewed 1,080 voters with a 2.9 percent margin of error.
The survey also found nearly 60 percent of Americans believe the federal bureaucracy is overgrown. More than 58 percent of voters agreed with the statement that key agencies of the federal government such as the EPA, CDC, and IRS “have grown too large and only serve their own political interests.” Just about 1 in 3 Americans said the agencies were “useful and effective” to implement laws passed by Congress. Less than 9 percent were unsure.
The survey revealing nationwide distaste for the Washington bureaucracy comes as Democrats prepare final passage of their $750 billion-dollar spending bill which includes funding for nearly 87,000 new federal agents for the IRS.
On Monday, the Justice Department sowed more distrust in the nation’s preeminent law enforcement agency with an unprecedented raid on the private home of a former president, ostensibly over potential violations of the Presidential Records Act. Prosecution under the 1978 law, according to George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, is rare. Prosecution of Trump, however, has remained a top item on the Democrats’ policy agenda since 2016 with two impeachments and a post-presidential committee established to indict Trump supporters and probably the former president himself over the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
A series of politically motivated investigations and episodes of malfeasance from both the FBI and IRS in particular over the last decade have given Americans good reason to cast doubt on the integrity of beltway institutions.
Last year, Senate Republicans introduced the “Don’t Weaponize the IRS Act” to codify a Trump-era rule passed last year aimed at stopping the IRS from targeting 501c4 tax-exempt groups based on their political ideology. The bill is designed to prevent a repeat of the 2013 tax scandal wherein the IRS applied undue scrutiny to conservative groups under Lois Lerner, but it has yet to move out of committee as Democrats double the agency’s size.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) has repeatedly undermined its own credibility by its deep state operations to bring down Trump. Monday’s raid was just the latest episode after fostering a years-long coup attempt in the form of a made-up scandal to frame Trump as a Russian agent.
In July, Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley unearthed new evidence indicating that the FBI interfered in the 2020 election. Senior officials within the FBI, according to multiple whistleblowers, worked to dismiss information related to President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, as disinformation while amplifying anything that could derail Trump. The whistleblower report offered more evidence to justify Trump’s second-term plans to gut the capital administrative state detailed in Axios just days prior to Grassley’s findings becoming public.
Comments
Unlock commenting by joining the Federalist Community. Subscribe
Source: The Federalist
