Over 35% of US Citizens Worried About Trump Team's Alleged Contacts With Russia

A total of 37 percent of the US nationals are "very concerned" about reports that US President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign associates had contacts with "Russian operatives" and Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak, a CNN/ORC poll showed Monday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Over 70 percent of the Democrats are highly concerned about those alleged contacts, while only 7 percent of the Republicans share their opinion, the poll showed.

According to the survey, 65 percent of the respondents (82 percent of Democrats and 43 percent of Republicans) support the idea of appointing a special prosecutor to investigate the contacts, while 32 percent believe that the Congress is "capable of handling the investigation itself."

A total of 32 percent believe that Russia interfered in the US presidential election, which is 8 percent higher than in January, the poll showed.

The poll was conducted on March 1-4, with a total of 1,025 adults across the United States interviewed by telephone. The estimated sampling error makes about 8.5 percentage points or less. The results regarding the issue of appointing a special prosecutor were based on 715 interviews, with the sampling error of estimated 3.5 percentage points.

On March 1, the Washington Post reported that US Attorney General Jeff Sessions spoke to the Russian ambassador twice last year while he was a US senator and part of Trump's campaign despite denying any contacts with the Russians at his confirmation hearing in January.

In February, US National Security Adviser Michael Flynn resigned amid media questioning his alleged ties to Kislyak, with whom he purportedly have discussed sanctions against Russia, a claim that Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov denied.