A Marquette Law School survey released on Thursday (September 22) shows one in three adults don’t believe there were classified documents at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago.
The survey showed that 67 percent of adults believe the former President had classified documents in his possession, compared to 33 percent that don’t. However, the results had a typical partisan split.
Fewer Republicans believe the former President had classified material than Independents and Democrats.
In fact, less than half (39 percent) of Republicans believe the documents seized by the FBI at Mar-a-Lago were classified.
That figure increases by 26 percentage points — to 65 percent — for Independents and 95 percent for Democrats.
The survey — conducted between September 7 and September 14, 2022 — had 1,448 adult participants, with a margin of error of 3.4 percentage points.
On August 8, when the FBI conducted a search and seizure on Trump’s residence, they retrieved 33 more than 100 classified documents. Trump and his allies have disputed the legitimacy of the Department of Justice’s investigation, calling it a “witch hunt” and claiming it is politically motivated. The former President also claimed he had declassified the documents.
On Wednesday (September 21), Trump doubled down on the claim he declassified the documents retrieved from his residence, telling Fox News host Sean Hannity a President could declassify documents “even by thinking about it.”
Yet, the accuracy of these claims has been disputed by some in the intelligence community, who describe the need to alert the appropriate intelligence agency when classified documents are declassified.
