CV NEWS FEED // During a Thursday appearance on ABC’s “The View,” Sen. John Fetterman, D-PA, told co-hostess Joy Behar that Democratic New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s prosecution of President-elect Donald Trump was “political.”
“It’s true that the trial in New York for Trump, that was political as well,” Fetterman told Behar. “America’s confidence in these kinds of institutions have been damaged by these kinds of cases, and we cannot allow these kinds of institutions to be weaponized against our political opponents.”
Referring to both the legal proceedings against Trump and President Joe Biden’s recently-pardoned son Hunter, Fetterman said “it’s very clear both trials were politically motivated and weaponized that on the other side.”
Fetterman went on to imply that Democrats’ insistence on legally charging Trump undermines the party’s case for criminal justice reform. The Pennsylvania senator is a longtime prominent advocate of such reform.
“The Democrats on our side,” he pointed out, “there were some that were gleeful calling, ‘Now he’s a convicted felon,’ and those things.”
“For our party, we were talking about criminal justice, and we are now talking about second chances,” the lawmaker elaborated.
“Both of those trials, the Hunter Biden one and the trial in New York for Trump, that was clearly, that was politically motivated and those kinds of charges would have never been brought unless one side could realize they could weaponize that,” Fetterman said.
Fetterman had brought up Trump’s trial in response to Behar when she asked about Biden’s controversial decision to pardon his son, who had been convicted on tax, gun, and drug-related charges.
Trump’s case resulted in the then-presidential candidate’s May 30 conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records. A chorus of observers across the political spectrum have long held that Bragg did not have grounds to bring the case in the first place.
However, as CatholicVote reported two weeks ago, Judge Juan Merchan “indefinitely delayed sentencing the president-elect in what has been hailed as a major victory” for Trump.
Furthermore, CatholicVote’s November 19 report noted that while detractors “had hoped Trump’s new status as a ‘convicted felon’ would derail his candidacy, it caused his supporters to rally around him and sparked an influx of campaign donations.”
“Ultimately, the May guilty verdict did not prevent Trump from defeating Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris in November,” CatholicVote added, “prompting many analysts to contend that the Manhattan case, and the various other legal accusations levied against Trump, backfired on Democrats.”
