Do Americans Believe Democracy is Still Intact?

The Stormy Daniels hush-money affair has taken a sudden twist with Donald Trump declaring via his attorney Rudy Giuliani he did reimburse his lawyer for the money he gave to the porn actress, and then backtracking from that version once more. What if this constituted a breach of campaign finance law, but Trump got away with it?

A survey by Pew Research Center shows that the American people know how important democratic freedoms and the rule of law are. But they seem sceptical as to whether they can count on those values still applying unconditionally.

This sort of popular scepticism is further fanned when Giuliani states, "He's the president of the United States," and "We can assert the same privileges other presidents have." He was talking about Trump possibly being subpoenaed by FBI special consel Robert Muller.

It would have been so much easier for Giuliani to argue the other way around that the president has the same rights as any other U.S. citizen. The 5th Amendment defines the constitutional right of a person to refuse to answer questions or otherwise give testimony against himself.