Did Cody Balmer, who is suspected of arson at the residence of the governor of Pennsylvania, publish a selfie with a "Fuck Trump" inscription? No, that's not true: The picture that went viral after the release of the suspect's name was digitally altered. The caption of the original selfie, which predated the attack by five years, did not mention Donald Trump at all.
The claim appeared in a post published on X on April 13, 2025. It opened:
The man who firebombed liberal governor Josh Shapiro. Its MAGA country again!!
The post included what looked like a screenshot of a selfie with the red letters across the image that read:
Fuck Trump.
This is what the post reviewed in this fact check looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot by Lead Stories)
However, the original image did not display such a message. It was published on Facebook on April 16, 2020, by an account that appears to belong to the suspect, Cody Allen Balmer. That post, showing a person in a surgical mask with a cigarette poking through it, included only a caption that read:
Stay safe out there.
(Source: Facebook screenshot by Lead Stories)
On April 14, 2025, Pennsylvania's authorities published a press release about a person named Cody A. Balmer of Harrisburg, PA (archived here), who was charged (archived here) with attempted murder, arson and terrorism in connection with the fire (archived here) at Governor Josh Shapiro's residence (archived here), which occurred one day earlier.
According to online voter registration data, Balmer is an active registered voter who did not select a party affiliation.
Lead Stories reached out to Pennsylvania's authorities for further comments.
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