Top Trump official slams Germany over probe into man who called Merz ‘Pinocchio’

A senior U.S. diplomat blasted German authorities over a police investigation into a retired man who referred to Chancellor Friedrich Merz as “Pinocchio.”

“It isn’t just Holocaust denial that spurs police crackdowns in Germany. This criminal investigation (against a retiree over the term ‘Pinocchio’) feels like a case of lèse-majesté,” U.S. Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy Sarah Rogers said. “Most Germans I’ve talked to don’t want their laws applied this way. But vague, broad prohibitions on speech invariably produce edge-case abuses and chilling effects.”

Rogers’ intervention underscores the Trump administration’s increasingly confrontational stance toward European policies on what people can and can’t say online, which it views as incompatible with U.S. free speech principles.

Local media reported Friday that police were investigating a retiree from the southwestern city of Heilbronn who commented on a local police Facebook post last October about security measures for a Merz visit: “Pinocchio is coming to Heilbronn.”

The man followed the comment with a long-nose emoji, referencing the fairytale character whose nose grows when he lies.

Heilbronn police confirmed the probe to POLITICO. According to a spokesperson, the department’s social media team filtered all comments on their Facebook post for possible indictable insults and sent them to the city’s public prosecutor’s office.

Three months later, police informed the man that he was under investigation over the alleged insult under Paragraph 188 of Germany’s criminal code. That provision allows prison sentences of up to five years for insult, slander or defamation directed at political figures.

Paragraph 188 has previously sparked controversy in Germany. In 2024, police searched the home of a retiree who had called then-Economy Minister Robert Habeck Schwachkopf, or moron. The far-right AfD sought to abolish the paragraph in January, but a vote in the Bundestag failed.

This wasn’t the first time Merz was referred to as “Pinocchio.”

Green politician Franziska Brantner wrote in a Facebook post last summer that, if Merz was not going to reduce the energy tax as promised, he could become a “lying Pinocchio chancellor.” AfD lawmaker Stephan Brandner also compared Merz to the fictional character in a social media post.

Regarding the newly reported probe, which comes as the Trump administration ramps up its attempts to force Europe into scaling back content-moderation laws, Rogers added: “When you’re regulating speech at scale, on platforms based in America (whose American users, especially, deserve First Amendment protection), this creates problems worth solving.”