The campaign for Democratic candidate John Fetterman, who's running for U.S. Senate in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, is denying that he ever called for the mass release of prisoners, specifically, one-third of the statewide criminal population, which amasses to over 12,400 of the about 37,700 convicts incarcerated in the state's correctional facilities as of Aug. 31, per a Pennsylvania Department of Corrections monthly population report.
So, as the U.S. Senate race heats up ahead of the November midterm elections, does Fetterman truly want to let a significant amount of criminals deemed "dangerous" back out on the streets of communities across the Keystone State?
CLAIM: Fetterman recently released an ad insisting it's "a lie" spread everywhere by his opponent, Republican nominee Dr. Mehmet Oz, asserting that he supports releasing one-third of Pennsylvania's inmates. "It's proven false," the campaign advertisement, titled "Lies From Doc Oz," says, claiming Fetterman "took on crime" at the local level when he was the mayor of Braddock, a borough located in the eastern suburbs of Pittsburgh.
(The television spot also mentions how Fetterman "showed up to crime scenes and stopped gun deaths." At the time back in 2013, then-Mayor Fetterman chased down and held an unarmed black jogger at gunpoint after falsely assuming the runner was involved in a gun crime despite the victim wearing athletic clothes while out on the jog. The shotgun incident now haunts Fetterman's current Senate bid, although he remains unapologetic.)
Cited in the ad are CNN's pro-Fetterman op-ed claiming Oz is "stoking fear," a Philadelphia Inquirer article ruling some of Oz's allegations "inaccurate," and a PolitiFact piece regurgitating an old "Mostly False" rating on the 1/3 release claim. Fetterman "has not called for" releasing one-third of "dangerous criminals," PolitiFact emphasized, positing that while Oz's statement "contains an element of truth," the celebrity TV doctor "distorts" Fetterman's stance on the issue and "ignores critical facts that would give a different impression."
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Are these liberal outlets providing cover for the Democratic nominee? Let's look at Fetterman's statements.
FACTS: In a May 30, 2020 tweet, Fetterman quoted the former head of the state's Department of Corrections, who, according to Fetterman's quote, claimed the state could decrease its prison population by one-third at no risk to public safety at-large: "We could reduce our prison population by 1/3 and not make anyone less safe." Fetterman went on to note that two-thirds of "those condemned to die" in Pennsylvania's prisons are black inmates. "We have the power to rectify this now," Fetterman urged, imploring that "we absolutely must" and "society will only achieve true justice when no soul dies in vain at the hands of our criminal system."
PolitiFact did not find any instance in which ex-Corrections Secretary John Wetzel expressed such a statement. After asking Fetterman's campaign about Wetzel's remarks, spokesperson Joe Calvello said the Fetterman team couldn't find the exact quote, but that Wetzel has made similar comments when he advocated in 2021 that most inmates who would be eligible for medical paroles are "incapacitated and not a security threat," calling such compassionate release "a humane way to alleviate costs while getting the infirm into the appropriate healthcare settings." (In a 2021 press release announcing the long-serving prisons chief's departure from the post, Democrat Gov. Tom Wolf praised Wetzel's leadership for reducing the state's inmate population—the first reduction in decades.) Calvello further maintained that Fetterman was not expressing an opinion on the matter or offering a direct endorsement of the one-third release policy but was citing Wetzel's supposed commentary to highlight the high cost of Pennsylvania's prison system as well as the potential savings.
An audio recording from 2021 shows Fetterman disclosed that he very much "agree[s] with" Wetzel's cause. Keeping thousands of convicted criminals behind bars is "not in the interest of justice, particularly if you didn't take a life directly," Fetterman stated in another 2020 audio file. "I'm trying to get as many folks out as we can," Fetterman told an ex-gang member who now works with at-risk youth as an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh, according to a meeting between the pair profiled by Politico on April 16, 2021.
In a separate Oct. 7, 2020 YouTube clip of a virtual "Second Chances" panel Fetterman was on for Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM), he said, "I agree," with Wetzel's "remarkable" idea of freeing approximately 33% of Pennsylvania's incarcerated offenders. "We're actively trying to audit our population to identify those inmates that are most deserving and does it make sense," Fetterman told another panelist.
Fetterman said state funds could be better spent on education, roads, and the broadband network instead of "warehousing" inmates "until they literally die." Lifetime imprisonment "doesn't make any sense and it's needless and it's cruel," he stated," blasting "arbitrary carnage" when it comes to sentencing guidelines.
Fox News Digital unearthed the soundbite, in which Calvello responded by rejecting the claim that Fetterman ever conveyed support for the 1/3 release initiative. "In all the tweets and statements you're referencing, John does not say he supports releasing one-third of Pennsylvania’s inmates," Calvello wrote in a statement.
"And John does not support releasing 1/3 of all inmates. Nothing you mentioned contradicts the independent fact checker PolitiFact's ruling that called this claim mostly false," he declared. Calvello underscored: "And to be clear, you are going to say that the non-partisan and independent Politifact got it wrong?"
Fetterman has twice characterized Wetzel's statement as "remarkable" for championing a shrinkage to his own department's funds, according to a 2020 video of Fetterman. The "truly profound" comment purportedly by Wetzel was referenced many times by Fetterman, as early as in a Feb. 20, 2020 tweet, noting his "friend" brought up the proposal on a panel that the two served on. Fetterman urged voters on Twitter to "[t]hink for a moment" what the annual savings could do for Pennsylvania if redirected elsewhere. Later, in a July 20, 2020 tweet again invoking Wetzel, Fetterman suggested reallocating the funding towards the state's schools.
Fetterman repeated the Wetzel anecdote in another FAMM appearance on Dec. 1, 2020, this time on expanding the release mechanism as "a common-sense response" to the winter spike of COVID-19 infections, recalling that he and the three-term state official were on a board before the pandemic hit. Slashing the state's Corrections budget "adds up year-after-year," an on-camera Fetterman pointed out in the YouTube video.
In a July 2, 2020 tweet, Fetterman estimated that the cutback on the incarcerated pool could save the state as much as $1 billion per year, stressing once more that over 66% of inmates serving live sentences without the possibility of parole are black. Fetterman also forecasted the billion-dollar projection in savings on a Zoom call.
?? In 1976, 650 people were serving life without the possibility of parole in PA. By 2018, more than 5,400 were serving life without parole. (LWOP)
— John Fetterman (@JohnFetterman) July 2, 2020
?? 2/3 of LWOP are Black.
?? We could reduce our state prison population by 1/3, make us *no* less safe + save $1B a year. https://t.co/zlLrdzG7nn
When questioned in a Nov. 12, 2020 interview with Rolling Stones what "truths" he's running on, Fetterman recited his go-to talking point on reducing the prison population "by a third" and reinvesting those resources in Pennsylvania's public education system. "I mean, that makes a lot of sense to me, and I don't think that’s controversial at all," Fetterman said. The "reinvestment" could also go towards state infrastructure, Fetterman said in a December 2020 video, recounting the apparent conference he and Wetzel appeared at together.
According to PennLive back on April 2, 2020, Fetterman said he will "push" one of his "long-time favorites...a dramatic reduction in the state prison population" by releasing non-violent offenders and older convicts. "I'm putting it out there," Fetterman said, "We are reaching a point where such proposals are no longer optional."
RATING: The Fetterman campaign's claim that the U.S. Senate hopeful never backed the large-scale release of inmates is FALSE. Fetterman has been caught on video multiple times agreeing with the proposed reduction.
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