Biden Admin Ignored Hundreds of Attacks on Churches, Pro-Life Pregnancy Centers
Over the course of his single term in the White House, former President Joe Biden and his administration targeted numerous pro-life Americans for prosecution, with many facing time in jail or prison for protesting the slaughter of unborn children. Under President Donald Trump and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is revealing that the Biden administration actively weaponized the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act and coordinated with abortion groups to target and prosecute pro-life Americans.
The DOJ published a nearly-900-page report Tuesday, detailing the Biden administration’s weaponization of law enforcement and collaboration with abortion industry giants, including the National Abortion Federation, Planned Parenthood, and Feminist Majority Foundation. “This Department will not tolerate a two-tiered system of justice,” Blanche said in a press release. “No Department should conduct selective prosecution based on beliefs. The weaponization that happened under the Biden Administration will not happen again, as we restore integrity to our prosecutorial system.”
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Here are the most stunning findings from the report.
‘Two-Tiered System of Justice’
The FACE Act prohibits the use of force, intimidation, or physical obstruction to prevent individuals from entering abortion facilities, pro-life pregnancy centers, or houses of worship, and bars the intentional defacing, vandalizing, or destruction of abortion facilities, pro-life pregnancy centers, or houses of worship. According to Tuesday’s DOJ report, Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland, largely ignored the law’s application to houses of worship, aggressively prosecuting pro-lifers for protesting near, immediately outside, or sometimes even inside abortion facilities, while allowing hundreds of acts of vandalism against pro-life pregnancy centers and Christian churches to go un-investigated or un-prosecuted.
Garland “provided extensive support to abortion clinics, yet the Biden DOJ often ignored and downplayed vandalism and attacks against pregnancy resource centers or houses of worship,” the report affirmed. According to conservative advocacy group CatholicVote, there have been nearly 560 attacks on Catholic churches in particular since May of 2020. The vast majority (392) of those attacks followed the 2022 leak of the U.S. Supreme Court’s draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the ruling that eventually overturned Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. CatholicVote found that arrests were made in connection with attacks on Catholic churches in only about 30% of cases.
Under Biden and Garland, the DOJ also revived the National Task Force on Violence Against Reproductive Health Care Providers, comprised predominantly of “career attorneys” from the DOJ’s civil rights division. The task force frequently communicated with pro-abortion organizations but “disregarded pro-life groups,” making no effort to communicate with pro-life pregnancy centers until months after they were targeted in 2022 for vandalism, arson, and other forms of threats and violence. When task force leaders did finally reach out to pro-life pregnancy centers, they determined who to contact “via a quick Google search,” relegated pro-life contacts to a press release recipient list, and openly “questioned whether to provide pregnancy resource centers with the same resources as abortion clinics, questioning whether these facilities fall under the FACE Act’s scope.”
Additionally, the Biden DOJ pursued more severe sentences for pro-life Americans than for pro-abortion activists, intentionally seeking “lenient” sentences for the latter. According to the report, the Biden DOJ “requested an average sentence of 26.8 months for pro-life defendants, compared to 12.3 months for pro-choice defendants,” placing sentences sought for pro-life activists at the higher end of federal sentencing guidelines and sentences sought for pro-abortion activists at the lower extreme. Ultimately, pro-lifers were sentenced to an average of 14 months, while pro-abortion activists were sentenced to an average of three months.
Pro-Abortion Collaboration
Under Biden and Garland, the DOJ’s National Task Force on Violence Against Reproductive Health Care Providers not only targeted pro-life Americans unfairly but frequently communicated with pro-abortion groups in order to maximize its targeting of pro-lifers. Task force leaders and members would routinely ask pro-abortion groups and abortion facility personnel for information on pro-life protests, demonstrations, and even “travel plans.”
“Pro-abortion groups capitalized on their relationship with the Task Force to gain internal information and push targets for FACE Act enforcement. The Task Force Director was on texting terms with the National Abortion Federation’s (NAF) Security Team and regularly communicated with Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the Feminist Majority Foundation (FMF),” the Tuesday report confirmed. The National Abortion Federation was even labeled an “MVP” by the task force for its help in identifying pro-life activists and flagging pro-life demonstrations in “real-time, which usually result[ed] in an investigation/prosecution.”
In many cases, abortion industry organizations would reach out to the DOJ to report or highlight pro-life protests or activities. The report found that pro-abortion non-governmental organizations (NGOs) would send the DOJ “security reports” and “dossiers” on pro-life activists, which included pro-lifers’ names, home addresses, places of employment, driver’s license numbers, and even photos and details on their family members, such as wives and children. In nearly all cases, DOJ prosecutions were initiated on the basis of information from pro-abortion NGOs, rather than reports from alleged victims or local law enforcement.
At one point, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) warned the task force that it was potentially infringing on the constitutionally-protected First Amendment rights of pro-lifers. “Yet, the Task Force did not relent,” the report stated, “even after this warning.”
Religious Bias and Withheld Evidence
When prosecuting pro-life Americans, the Biden DOJ routinely engaged in religious and political bias, screening potential jurors to eliminate likely conservatives and Christians without making any effort to question possible jurors on left-wing or liberal political inclinations. Prosecutors referred to pro-life views as “culty” and even complained of a “very Catholic magistrate” judge before whom one of their cases appeared. DOJ attorneys complained that the Catholic judge “was very particular about the bond conditions and not infringing on [defendants’] first amendment rights.”
One of the few FACE Act cases that the Biden DOJ prosecuted unsuccessfully was that of Mark Houck, a Catholic father of seven and pro-life activist. Houck was charged with violating the FACE Act when he pushed a Planned Parenthood employee who followed him and his son, a minor, across the street and verbally harassed Houck’s son. According to the Tuesday report, the Biden DOJ actually “declined” a request from Houck’s attorneys for Houck to voluntarily surrender to federal authorities. “Rather, 16 FBI agents arrested the defendant at his home. When faced with public backlash about the aggressive arrest,” the report recounted, “the Task Force Director attempted to blame the FBI,” which was not informed that the DOJ had declined the request for a voluntary surrender. Last week, Houck won a settlement with the DOJ for more than $1 million. He was previously acquitted in court.
Additionally, the Biden DOJ’s prosecutors “knowingly withheld evidence” that was requested by a pro-lifer’s attorneys. The director of the National Task Force on Violence Against Reproductive Health Care Providers was asked by defense attorneys for “historical data on FACE Act prosecutions to prepare their selective prosecution defense,” but the director claimed that he did not “keep [these] kind of records,” despite the fact that he “had this information readily available and decided not to share it with the defendants” and had shared “substantially identical information” with representatives of the National Abortion Federation.
Next Steps
The report touted the pardons President Trump issued last year to “pro-life Christians unfairly targeted by the Biden DOJ” and affirmed that new policies have been enacted to ensure that no such abuse occurs again. Moving forward, the report said, the DOJ’s “prosecutors may only bring FACE Act civil actions and prosecutions in extraordinary circumstances or in cases presenting significant aggravating factors.” The DOJ also confirmed that all “personnel responsible for weaponizing the FACE Act who still remained at the department” have been “terminated.”
In comments to The Washington Stand, Mary Szoch, director of Family Research Council’s Center for Human Dignity, welcomed the Trump administration’s efforts at accountability, transparency, and restitution but urged the president to take further action in defense of unborn Americans. “The Trump administration’s review revealing that the Biden DOJ worked closely with Planned Parenthood, the National Abortion Federation, and the Feminist Majority Foundation showed what we’ve all known to be true for a long time: the pro-abortion industry is simply another arm of the Democratic Party,” she said. “Those with ties to the abortion industry are willing to weaponize government against those who stand up for and defend life in the womb. This is disgusting, and another reason why the Trump administration should prioritize protecting American taxpayer dollars from funding abortion businesses and safeguarding American women and unborn children from the abortion industry.”
“This last year, Planned Parenthood raked in $832 million in taxpayer dollars, and they killed 434,450 unborn children. Alexis McGill Johnson has said that nearly 70% of those abortions occur using mifepristone — a dangerous drug that was approved by a Democrat Food and Drug Administration that did not thoroughly test the drug’s safety,” Szoch continued. “A great way for the Trump administration to repair the damage done by the Biden administration’s targeting of pro-lifers would be to completely separate the abortion industry from government, ensuring that no taxpayer dollars pay for the killing of unborn children, and to revoke the politically driven approval of mifepristone because it is unsafe for women and their unborn children and was clearly approved to drive more business to the abortion industry.”
LifeNews Note: S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washigton Stand.
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