Americans' support for impeaching Trump growing

The number of Americans who say US President Donald Trump should be impeached is rising, amid growing calls for Congress to begin impeachment proceedings against the president, according to a new poll.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Thursday found that 45 percent of Americans want Trump impeached, rising 5 percentage points since mid-April.

The latest poll showed stronger support for impeachment among Democrats and independents.

Trump’s popularity was unchanged from a similar poll that ran last week - 39 percent of adults said they approved of Trump, while 55 percent said they disapproved.

Trump has proclaimed he was fully exonerated by US Special Counsel Robert Mueller's recently released report on alleged Russian interference on the 2016 presidential election.

After a nearly two-year investigation by Mueller, House Democrats are pursuing multiple inquiries into Trump’s presidency, his family and his business interests.

But some Democrats argue that the document presents multiple occasions in which the president may have obstructed justice by trying to impede Mueller’s investigation.

On Thursday, several US advocacy groups delivered to Congress 10 million signatures of people calling on lawmakers to begin impeachment proceedings against

The activists delivered the signatures to Democratic Representatives Rashida Tlaib and Al Green. Tlaib has introduced a bill that would direct the House Judiciary Committee to investigate whether Trump committed impeachable offenses.

“We are holding in our hands 10 million reasons for being here today," Green said, as he and Tlaib held up a flash drive.

Other senior Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have warned about such a move, stressing it could deeply divide the nation of about 325 million people.

They warn it could backfire politically in the run up to the 2020 election, especially with the Republican-controlled Senate likely to exonerate Trump in the event of impeachment by the House of Representatives, where Democrats have majority.