Poll: Majority of Americans want Trump to be criminally charged for his role in Jan. 6 riot

Almost six out of 10 Americans think former President Donald Trump was responsible for the events of Jan. 6 and should face criminal charges, an ABC News/Ipsos poll has found.

The poll found that 58% of Americans think Trump should be held accountable for the role he played in the riot, which is higher than in late April, when it was 52% in an ABC News/Washington Post poll.

The poll found that, among the parties, 91% of Democrats believe the former president should be criminally charged, compared to only 19% of Republicans.

Additionally, the poll found that 60% believe the House select committee investigating the Capitol riot has been “fair and impartial.” 46% of people believe Trump bears “great” responsibility for the Capitol riot, 12 percent say a “good” amount of responsibility, and 17 percent say “just some” responsibility.

Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) one of two Republicans on the House Select Committee investigating the riot on Jan. 6, said Sunday on ABC News’ “This Week” that Trump is “guilty of knowing what he did” leading up to the attack.

“Obviously, you know we’re not a criminal charges committee, so I want to be careful in specifically using that language,” Kinzinger said. But he added that he thinks what the committee is “presenting before the American people certainly would rise to a level of criminal involvement by a president and definitely failure of the oath.”

The special congressional committee investigating the riot held its third round of public hearings last week, spotlighting the intense pressure former Vice President Mike Pence received from Trump to overturn the 2020 election results.

The panel on Thursday heard from multiple witnesses who outlined Trump’s effort to lobby his vice president to reject electoral votes for Joe Biden during the official certification of state results.

“We’re fortunate for Mr. Pence’s courage on Jan. 6,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) chair of the committee. “Our democracy came dangerously close to catastrophe.”

The poll was conducted June 17-18 with a nationally representative probability sample of 545. It has a sampling error margin of 4.5 percentage points.