The federal prosecutions against President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, and the New York state hush money case against President-elect Donald Trump were both politically motivated and worthy of pardons, according to Democratic Sen. John Fetterman on Thursday.
Over the weekend, Biden granted his son Hunter a sweeping pardon. Earlier this year, a New York state jury found Trump guilty of falsifying company documents pertaining to payments made to adult film actor Stormy Daniels prior to the 2016 election. In state situations such as that one, pardons are made at the state level rather than the federal one.
Comparing the tax and gun charges against Hunter Biden to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against Trump, Fetterman told a small group of reporters in the Capitol that they were politically driven and used as a weapon for political ends.
“In the New York instance, the same thing was done with Trump. Additionally, that was bull—-,” the senator from Pennsylvania stated. And that was used as a political weapon.
The procedure “has degraded” the court system in the eyes of the American people, Fetterman added, adding, “Now collectively, I think it’s appropriate for both sides to receive a pardon.”
When asked if Fetterman was urging Biden to pardon Trump, he did not respond explicitly.
According to him, we cannot for our country’s institutions to be used as weapons against a political adversary or faction. It’s insane.
Fetterman likened the situation to a prosecutor in a Republican state attempting to try former President Barack Obama for a trivial, absurd matter.
Following criticism from Sens. Gary Peters and Michael Bennet, Fetterman is one of just a few Democratic senators to publicly remark on Biden’s pardon for his son. During an appearance on ABC’s “The View” on Thursday, Fetterman also stated that he does not believe pardons should be granted for cases involving the violence that occurred at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. He also argued that only Trump’s case in New York, where he was found guilty of 34 felony charges of fraud, was motivated by politics.
I’m referring to the New York trial, where some Democrats were gleefully claiming that he was now a convicted felon and other such things. We were discussing criminal justice at our party, and then we were talking about second chances, when suddenly you said, “Well, he’s a convicted felon and all these things,” Fetterman said.
In his official statement announcing Hunter Biden’s pardon on Sunday, the president noted that “raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice.” Fetterman shared Biden’s opinion.
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