Democratic Sen. John Fetterman said Thursday that the federal cases against President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, and the New York hush-money case against newly elected President Donald Trump were both “politically motivated” and deserved pardons.
Biden issued a broad pardon to his son Hunter this weekend. Trump was convicted by a state jury in New York earlier this year on charges of falsifying business records related to payments to Stormy Daniels, an adult film performer, ahead of the 2016 election. Pardons in state cases if handled at a statistical level, not at the presidential level.
Fetterman told a small group of reporters at the Capitol that the tax and gun cases against Hunter Biden were “politically motivated” and “weaponized for political gain,” compared to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against Trump.
“The same thing was done to Trump in the New York case. And that was bullshit too,” the Pennsylvania senator said. “And that was weaponized for political gain.”
“Now I think it is collectively appropriate that both parties be pardoned,” Fetterman continued, adding that this process has “degraded” the justice system in the eyes of the American people.
Fetterman did not directly answer the question of whether he is calling on Biden to pardon Trump.
“I say we cannot allow our nation – our institutions – to be weaponized against our political enemy or any political side,” he said. “It’s crazy.”
Fetterman compared it to a prosecutor in a red state who wanted to bring former President Barack Obama “to trial for a simple, crazy case.”
Fetterman is just one of a handful of Democratic senators who have publicly commented on Biden’s pardon for his son, following criticism from Senators Michael Bennet and Gary Peters. Fetterman also said Thursday in an appearance on ABC’s “The View” that he does not believe pardons should be granted for cases related to violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and only highlighted Trump’s case in New York, where he was found. guilty of 34 crimes of fraud, and was politically motivated.
“I’m talking about the trial in New York, and now that the Democrats are on our side, there were some who gleefully shouted, ‘Now he’s a convicted felon,’ and things like that. And now for our party we were talking about criminal justice, and we’re now talking about second chances and now, all of a sudden, now you’re like, ‘Well, he’s a convicted felon and all that stuff,'” Fetterman said.
Fetterman echoed Biden’s sentiment that “rough politics has infected this process and led to a miscarriage of justice,” the president wrote in his official statement announcing Hunter Biden’s pardon on Sunday.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
