Before special counsel Robert Mueller cleared the Trump campaign, Barack Obama CIA Director John Brennan insisted that any suggestion Trump did not collude with Russia was "hogwash."
He infamously called President Trump's performance at a news conference in Helsinki with Vladimir Putin "nothing short of treasonous."
A short time later Trump revoked Brennan's security clearance, charging the Obama appointee had "leveraged his status ... to make a series of unfounded and outrageous allegations, wild outbursts on the internet and on television, about this administration."
But now a startling new poll shows a majority of Democrats agree with Brennan's charge against the president.
The ScottRasmussen.com survey found 57 percent of Democrats "believe that, in his relations with the Russian government, President Trump is guilty of treason."
Only 14 percent of Democrats disagree, and 29 percent are not sure.
Rasmussen found 82 percent of Republicans reject the notion that the president is guilty of treason and just 7 percent agree. Among independent voters, 30 percent believe he has committed treason while 44 percent disagree and 25 percent are not sure.
"The belief that the president committed treason is shared by 28 percent of men and 37 percent of women. There is a significant generation gap: 48 percent of those under 35 believe he is guilty, a view shared by just 20 percent of senior citizens. Twenty-six percent (26 percent) of white voters agree along with 49 percent of black voters and 50 percent of Hispanic voters," the report said.
And despite the fact that Mueller's nearly two-year investigation found no collusion on the part of the president's campaign, 42 percent of respondents believe he did collude. Forty-one-percent agree with the special counsel's conclusion.
The survey interviewed 1,002 registered voters May 3-4. It has a 3.1 percentage point margin of error with a 95 percent level of confidence.
Brennan, as a CNN commentator, repeatedly had insisted that Mueller's investigation would provide proof of crimes by the president and his aides.
He made excuses after Mueller concluded there was no collusion, telling MSNBC, "I don't know if I received bad information, but I think I suspected there was more than there actually was."
Significantly, CNN provided no disclaimer that viewers listening to Brennan's commentary on the Mueller probe should take into account his own complicity in initiating the allegations of Trump-campaign collusion with Russia.
Trump has insinuated that the genesis of the Russia-collusion investigation came from the Obama White House.
"I think it went very high up," Trump said in March. "I think what happened is a disgrace. I don't believe our country should allow this ever to happen again."
The Washington Post reported that in August 2016, Brennan requested a meeting with Obama after compiling his own dossier of claims of Russian interference in the election.
That same month, Brennan briefed then-Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid about elements in another dossier, the unverified anti-Trump document crafted by former British spy Christopher Steele that was funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. Reid then transmitted some of the information in a letter to the FBI.
The salacious and unsubstantiated claims against Trump from Russian sources later were used as evidence to obtain a warrant to spy on Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page.
Republican lawmakers, including Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., now want to investigate the role the dossier had in obtaining the warrant and its overall part in initiating the special counsel probe.
The DOJ's inspector general also is looking into the issue, as is Attorney General William Barr, which raises the possibility of charges against Brennan or other Obama officials.
Former U.S. attorney Joseph diGenova told the Fox News Channel's Sean Hannity last July that Brennan is responsible for the spreading of false information about Trump and Russia among American intelligence agencies.
Russia expert Paul Kengor highlighted Brennan's radical background, noting the Obama CIA director voted for Communist Party candidate Gus Hall for president of the United States.
Brennan was probed for testifying falsely, under oath, before the House Intelligence Committee that the infamous anti-Trump dossier played no role in the intelligence community’s publicly released conclusion that Russia interfered in the 2016 election.
Also, after Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., accused the CIA of spying on members of the Senate by hacking into computers used by her intelligence committee’s staffers, Brennan said, "Let me assure you the CIA was in no way spying on [the committee] or the Senate."
However, a CIA inspector general's report found the CIA was indeed spying on the Senate, and Brennan was forced to privately apologize to intelligence committee members.
Brennan also claimed in a 2011 speech that there had not been "a single collateral death" from U.S. drone strikes because of their "exceptional proficiency [and] precision.'" However, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism found that one U.S. drone strike alone had killed 42 Pakistanis, "most of them civilians."
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., reacted to Brennan's treason claim.
"If he has top-secret clearance as unhinged as he is now, he's calling the president treasonous, saying he is for the death penalty of the president, this is alarming," the senator said.