Impeachment inquiry surges Trump's approval ratings

By Vakkas Dogantekin

ANKARA (AA) - U.S. President Donald Trump's job approval ratings have surged to nearly an all-time high ahead of pending Senate impeachment trial.

In the most recent Gallup poll released on Monday, 44% of Americans said they approve the job he is doing as president, nearly 5% above the 39-41% ratings he received as the Democrat-led impeachment proceedings started in the fall.

At the height of his popularity during his presidency, Trump enjoyed approval ratings around 46%, and on average he was never below 40%.

According to the poll, 88% of the Republicans, 37% of independents and 10% of Democrats approve of the job Trump is doing, which shows the impeachment inquiry has not had a negative effect on the administration's popularity.

Conducted in Jan. 2-15, the poll highlighted that 46% of Americans say they would like their senators to vote to convict Trump and remove him from office, while 51% want their senators to vote against the conviction.

It also revealed that popular approach to Trump's impeachment is sharply divided along partisan lines.

93% of Republicans reject convicting Trump and 84% of Democrats back it. Independents are evenly divided, with 49% in favor and 46% opposed.

The Senate's impeachment trial of President Trump began Thursday with the reading aloud of the two House of Representatives-passed charges, making Trump the third chief executive in U.S. history to face Senate proceedings. The two articles of impeachment against Trump -- abuse of power and obstruction of Congress -- related to his repeated effort to have Ukraine declare criminal investigations into leading Democratic candidate Joe Biden, and his subsequent refusal to cooperate with the House's investigation of the matter.

Trump also directed his top officials to follow suit as the House continued to issue subpoenas that Democrats maintain would have brought to light information vital to their case.

Trump and his Republican allies in Congress have denied any sort of wrongdoing took place, maintaining the president was working to ferret out corruption in Ukraine, not looking for influencing this year's presidential election.