Half in new poll say Biden got special treatment in classified documents investigation
Just more than half of Americans think President Biden received special treatment when a special counsel did not bring forth charges following a classified documents probe, according to a new poll.
The survey, conducted by Reuters and Ipsos, found 53 percent of all respondents agreed with the statement that Biden “received special treatment because he is the U.S. president.” Nearly 30 percent of Democratic respondents said the same.
Special counsel Robert Hur released a 388-page report last week detailing his findings after a roughly yearlong investigation into how documents from Biden’s time as vice president ended up at an old office space and his home in Wilmington, Del. The report’s conclusion said Biden “willfully” retained the documents but did not bring any charges.
Hur, however, branded the president as an “elderly man with a poor memory.” Among respondents, 46 percent said they were “somewhat familiar” with Hur’s explanation claiming it would be difficult to prosecute Biden, 81, because of that characterization, the survey found.
As Biden gears up his reelection efforts, his age and mental competency have been a large focus of attention and ridicule. The president, who is the oldest person to ever occupy the Oval Office, would be 86 at the end of a second term.
About 78 percent of all respondents — 71 percent of Democrats specifically — say Biden is already too old to work in government.
Former President Trump, who is the likely GOP nominee set to face off against Biden in the general election, is 77. The survey found that voters responded better to Trump’s age than Biden’s. Only Fifty-three percent said the former president is too old to work in government.
Trump, in his documents case, is facing 40 charges of mishandling classified records and blocking official’s retrieval of them — which allegedly includes files marked as top secret. The FBI retrieved the documents from his Mar-a-Lago property in August 2022.
About 64 percent of respondents consider it believable that Biden took the documents illegally. Sixty-eight percent said the same about Trump, the survey found.
The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted Feb. 9-12 among 1,237 voters and has a margin of error of about 3 percentage points.
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