Democrat Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania has joined President-elect Donald Trump’s social media platform, Truth Social, making him one of the few Democratic officials to do so.
Fetterman, known for breaking ranks with his party on several issues, took to his first post on Truth Social to criticize Trump’s legal troubles as well as the broader politicization of the judiciary. “The Trump hush money and Hunter Biden cases were both bulls***, and pardons are appropriate. Weaponizing the judiciary for blatant, partisan gain diminishes the collective faith in our institutions and sows further division,” he wrote.
Fetterman has also publicly condemned members of his own party for anti-Israel rhetoric. On Truth Social, his calls for fairness extended to urging President Joe Biden to pardon Donald Trump, who was recently convicted of allegedly falsifying business records—a charge Trump calls “political persecution” orchestrated by the Biden administration and the Department of Justice (DOJ).
“As I’ve said, these lawsuits are being run by the Department of Justice, the FBI. Biden is behind it all, believe it or not,” Trump previously claimed.
After Trump’s landslide victory over Vice President Kamala Harris, Fetterman remained firm in his stance, describing Trump’s charges as “completely politically motivated.” He drew parallels to the Hunter Biden case, similarly dismissed as partisan: “I think that it’s undeniable that the case against Hunter Biden was really politically motivated, but I also think it’s true that the trial in New York for Trump was political as well. In both cases, I think a pardon is appropriate. America’s confidence in these types of institutions has been damaged by these kinds of cases. We cannot allow these institutions to be weaponized against our political opponents,” Fetterman added.
Trump’s accusations of being a target of political lawfare gained further traction following President Biden’s pardon of his son, Hunter Biden, who claimed to be the victim of a partisan investigation—despite the fact that Biden’s own attorney general, Merrick Garland, oversees the DOJ.
Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz called Biden’s pardon an “acknowledgment that this Justice Department has engaged in lawfare and the weaponization of criminal justice.” He added, “It’s a rebuke to Garland, it’s a rebuke to the special prosecutor Weiss, it’s a rebuke of the entire system.”