Americans evenly split on fourth Trump indictment — but just a third confident in DOJ’s Hunter probe

Americans are divided over whether former President Donald Trump should have been indicted in Georgia over attempts to overturn the 2020 election results in that state — but only a third are confident the Justice Department is fairly handling its investigation of first son Hunter Biden, according to a new poll.

An ABC News/Ipsos survey released Thursday found 49% of US adults say Trump, 77, should have been charged with a crime while the same percentage say the 13-count indictment brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis was “politically motivated.”

By contrast, 32% of Americans believe the former president should not have been charged in the Georgia case and 18% are unsure. A slightly higher proportion (35%) say the indictment was not political and 16% are unsure.

Meanwhile, just 32% of respondents said they are “somewhat” or “very” confident that the Department of Justice has handled its probe of Hunter Biden’s alleged tax and gun crimes “in a fair and nonpartisan manner.”

Nearly half (48%) are either “not so confident” or “not confident at all,” up two percentage points from earlier this month. The remaining 20% said they were unsure.

Former Hunter Biden business partner Devon Archer told members of the House Oversight Committee in a July 31 closed-door interview that the then-second son put his father on speakerphone during meetings with business associates more than 20 times during their working years.

On July 26, the first son pleaded not guilty in Delaware federal court to tax misdemeanors and a felony gun charge after a deal with the Justice Department imploded under persistent questioning from a federal judge.

A majority of Americans (63%) also say the Georgia indictment of the former president, which includes charges for 18 of his allies and supporters, is either “somewhat serious” or “very serious.”

A quarter say the indictment on charges including racketeering, conspiracy, false statements and asking a public official to violate their oath of office is either “not too serious” or “not serious at all,” while 12% said they didn’t know.

An even 50% of Americans said Trump should suspend his campaign following the Georgia indictment. A third said he should not, while the remaining 17% said they didn’t know.

A separate Quinnipiac University national poll published on Wednesday showed most Americans (54%) supported prosecuting Trump before the Georgia indictment was handed up.

The Quinnipiac results fell largely along partisan lines and tracked with previous surveys concerning the former president’s indictments in Manhattan, South Florida and Washington, DC.

In late March, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg handed down a 34-count indictment alleging Trump had altered corporate records to conceal the reimbursement of “hush money” payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels prior to the 2016 election.

Special counsel Jack Smith has twice indicted the former president. In April, he slapped Trump with 37 counts for allegedly keeping national security documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

Earlier this month, he hit Trump with four counts over the attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election, leading to the storming of the US Capitol by a mob of his supporters on Jan. 6, 2021.

An AP-NORC Center poll conducted before the Georgia indictment found 53% of Americans would “definitely” never vote for Trump to be elected to a second nonconsecutive term, and another 11% would “probably not.”

Only 36% said that they would “probably” or “definitely” back Trump.

Trump and Biden, 80, are also battling low approval ratings as they each remain their party’s frontrunner for the 2024 election, the ABC News/Ipsos poll shows.

More than half (55%) have an unfavorable view of Trump, and 54% say the same of Biden. Just 31% of Americans have a favorable opinion of either the former president or the current president.

The ABC News/Ipsos survey was conducted Aug. 15 and 16 and interviewed 508 US adults, with a margin of error of plus-or-minus 4.7 percentage points.