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DOJ Report Reveals Biden Admin.’s Expansive Religious Liberty Violations and Hostility to American Christians

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The presidency of Joe Biden was a dark, though relatively brief, chapter in American history, replete with widespread prosecution and persecution of American Christians. President Donald Trump repeatedly pledged on the campaign trail to establish a federal task force to investigate and eradicate the anti-Christian bias evinced and enacted by the Biden administration, and has delivered on that promise. On Thursday morning, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) published a 209-page report entitled, “Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias within the Federal Government,” detailing not only the numerous abuses of the Biden administration but also the remedies put in place by the Trump administration.

“Our Nation’s origin and system of government bear the imprint of a Christian worldview and ethic, even as its laws protect religious pluralism. Christian beliefs, in conjunction with contemporary political thought and economic realities, influenced colonial settlers in their decision to overthrow tyranny and pursue independence,” the report’s introduction states. “After the Revolutionary War, Christians then informed the structure and contents of the United States Constitution, its amendments, and contemporaneous state constitutions.”

“But, when Christian beliefs about morality and human nature conflicted with the Biden Administration’s views, religious rights often suffered,” the report’s introduction continues. “The Biden Administration generally tolerated religious beliefs that were privately held but zealously pursued actions to limit Christians’ ability to act in accordance with their faith. This affected matters of deep personal importance to nearly every American: life, family, marriage, and self-identity,” it continues. “The Biden Administration’s policies regularly clashed with a Christian worldview and burdened traditional religious practices. These conflicts frequently arose over abortion, gender ideology, and sexual orientation. Ultimately, the Biden Administration penalized Christians who lived in accordance with their beliefs.”

The report details 14 “key findings” regarding the Biden administration’s abuse of power and violation of religious liberties, ranging from a two-tiered justice system and aggressive prosecution of pro-life activists to the coercive violation of conscience rights and the rabid promotion of LGBT ideology. The taskforce also identifies several “remedies” that the Trump administration has enacted to ensure that the federal government is not weaponized against American Christians.

“No American should live in fear that the federal government will punish them for their faith,” said Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, chair of the Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias, in a statement. He said that the Biden administration’s actions “devastated the lives of many Christian Americans,” adding, “That devastation ended with President Trump. The Department of Justice will continue to expose bad actors who targeted Christians and work tirelessly to restore religious liberty for all Americans of faith.”

During an appearance on “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” Thursday, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Camille Varone further emphasized that the report was “a whole of government effort,” noting that “the task force has 17 cabinet level members and other agency heads. But there were other agencies who were hearing about the work we were doing and were excited to participate. And so the report has findings from far more than just the task force members.”

Below are the report’s key findings and the Trump administration’s proposed actions to eradicate anti-Christian bias from the federal government.

FACE Act Weaponization

The DOJ previously published a report tracking how the Biden administration used the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act to aggressively target pro-life Americans, while largely ignoring the law’s provisions protecting pro-life pregnancy resource centers and houses of worship. The new report characterizes the Biden administration’s DOJ as “an enforcement arm” for the abortion industry.

Over the course of Biden’s tenure in the White House, his DOJ “routinely” collaborated with pro-abortion non-governmental organizations (NGOs) — chiefly the National Abortion Federation, Planned Parenthood, and the Feminist Majority Foundation — to prosecute pro-life Americans. The Biden DOJ would regularly request information from the abortion agencies relating to pro-life protests, prayer vigils, and other pro-life activities. In several cases, the Biden DOJ would even launch prosecutions at the request of pro-abortion NGOs, all while “mostly disregard[ing] pro-life groups.”

Varone also observed that “non-governmental organizations could poke around on the internet in ways that the department couldn’t. There were so many different documents that we found from the National Abortion Federation and Planned Parenthood compiling dossiers where they were monitoring pro-life Americans — collecting information about their travel, their whereabouts, their social media posts, including posting of Bible verses. There were even information about the cars that they drove and photos of some of their children. And they compiled all of this to give it to the Department of Justice, to the people who were charged with prosecuting under the FACE Act in case something might happen [that the DOJ] may view as a potential crime.”

The Biden DOJ also withheld evidence requested by defense attorneys for pro-lifers and regularly pursued harsher penalties for pro-lifers than for pro-abortion activists. “The Biden DOJ pursued significantly higher sentences (near the top range of sentencing guidelines) for pro-life defendants, while pursuing more lenient sentences against the handful of pro-abortion defendants that it charged,” the report notes. On average, the Biden DOJ requested an average sentence of 26.8 months for the 21 pro-life defendants it successfully prosecuted, while requesting an average sentence of only 12.3 months for the six pro-abortion defendants it prosecuted. The most stringent sentence was handed to Lauren Handy, who was sentenced to 58 months (nearly five years) in prison. The Biden DOJ originally requested that she be sentenced to 78 months (six-and-a-half years).

Upon taking office last year, Trump pardoned the pro-life activists targeted by the Biden administration and directed his DOJ to dismiss “with prejudice” three civil lawsuits against pro-life defendants. The Trump DOJ also issued a directive ordering that prosecutors “may only bring FACE Act civil actions and prosecutions in extraordinary circumstances or in cases presenting significant aggravating factors.”

Targeting Traditionalist Catholics

In 2023, it was revealed that the Biden administration’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) illegally targeted American Catholics devoted to the Extraordinary Form of the Mass, the liturgy celebrated prior to the Second Vatican Council, and even spied on traditionalist Catholic parishes. The FBI’s Richmond, Virginia, field office drafted a memo labeling “radical traditionalist Catholics” as potential “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists” and detailing plans to infiltrate and spy on traditionalist Catholic parishes. While the Trump DOJ notes that the FBI’s Weaponization Working Group will release a more in-depth report “detailing the day-to-day weaponization of the Richmond Field Office against conservative, practicing Catholics on the basis of guilt-by-association because one career criminal attended a local Catholic church,” the DOJ’s report provides an “overview” of the discrimination.

Citing the recently-indicted Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the Richmond field office labeled traditionalist Catholics as potential “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists” and began crafting its memo, which was originally intended to be circulated nationwide across the agency. The arrest of career criminal Xavier Louis Lopez for possession of weapons including Molotov cocktails, improvised napalm, and hollow-point bullets provided an opportunity for the Richmond FBI to target a Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) parish with which Lopez was affiliated. Although Our Lady of Fatima parish in Richmond “played no role whatsoever in Lopez’s acquisition or possession of the destructive devices,” the FBI interviewed the pastor, Father James Hewko, who asked to speak with the parish’s legal representation before speaking to the FBI about Lopez. The FBI subsequently monitored both Hewko and his uncle, in addition to interviewing and monitoring others associated with the parish.

Trump’s FBI Director, Kash Patel, has vowed that this “weaponization and politicization of law enforcement” will never be “allowed to happen again.” The FBI’s Weaponization Working Group will disclose further details.

Targeting Concerned Parents

In 2021, as parents across the country were voicing their discontent with radical LGBT policies at local school board meetings, Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland, issued a DOJ-wide memo alleging that parents who protest at local school board meetings should be treated as potentially violent domestic extremists. Garland recommended forming a DOJ task force to explore the use of domestic terrorism statutes against parents and “recommended that United States Attorney’s Offices and FBI Field Offices coordinate with local law enforcement and school districts, and that the FBI’s National Threat Operations Center assist by directing credible threats to appropriate law enforcement partners.”

Although some within the DOJ warned that the actions of parents at school board meetings were almost certainly protected under the First Amendment and, even when parents did take action that constituted crimes, those crimes were often not federal offenses. “Those concerns did not win the day,” the Trump DOJ’s report notes. Garland revised his memo, but still urged the Biden DOJ to target concerned parents, who were characterized as “threats” to school boards. The Biden DOJ “quickly acted to follow through.” While the Biden DOJ’s criminal division was “skeptical,” Garland and his team forged ahead with plans to prosecute parents who protested at school board meetings via “possible application of color of law provisions that criminalize conduct that interfere with those participating in programs receiving federal financial assistance.”

Investigation of Christian Charities

Under Biden, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) weaponized the Johnson Amendment against Christian nonprofit organizations. The Johnson Amendment is a U.S. tax code provision prohibiting most nonprofit organizations from endorsing or explicitly opposing political candidates. Biden’s IRS, the Trump DOJ’s report explains, used the Johnson Amendment to target “Christian churches and non-profit institutions, particularly those who espoused traditional Christian views that could be construed with a political valence, scrutinizing their statements for violations.”

The Biden IRS seemingly singled out churches and nonprofit organizations that were characterized as supportive of Republican candidates and conservative issues, while failing to apply the Johnson Amendment to churches and nonprofit organizations aligned or affiliated with Democrats, even those that explicitly supported Democratic candidates or politicians. The investigations were not limited to the speech of pastors, but sought wide-ranging information on the finances and operations of targeted churches and nonprofit organizations. “The Biden IRS’s pattern of enforcement,” the Trump DOJ’s report says, “raised serious concerns about the IRS attempting to regulate what certain pastors could say from the pulpit and chilled the speech of many other clergy.”

The Trump administration’s Treasury Department has subsequently revised its standards for application of the Johnson Amendment, clarifying that houses of worship can communicate to their congregations regarding moral and political matters in accord with their respective teachings without falling afoul of the Johnson Amendment. “Bona fide communications internal to a house of worship, between the house of worship and its congregation, in connection with religious services,” neither “participate” nor “intervene” in political campaigns, “any more than does a family discussion concerning candidates.”

Fining Christian Universities

The Biden administration’s Department of Education levied hefty fines against Christian colleges and universities, while largely failing to pursue similar penalties against secular, non-religious institutions for similar regulatory violations. According to the Trump DOJ’s report, the “average fine against a Christian school was $815,000, compared to $228,571 against public and private institutions.” The two largest fines levied against Christian universities were against Grand Canyon University ($37.7 million) and Liberty university ($14 million).

The fines against Liberty University were for supposed violations of the Clery Act, which provides the public with information regarding a university’s safety. The Trump DOJ’s report notes that the fines against Grand Canyon University and Liberty University “dwarfed the fines levied against Pennsylvania State University ($2.4 million) for 11 Clery Act violations involving the school’s failure to report sex offenses relating to its assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky’s serial child molestation, and against Michigan State University ($4.5 million) for its failure to disclose sex offenses committed by Larry Nassar, a team physician who sexually assaulted hundreds of athletes.”

Under the Trump administration, the Department of Education has not only dismissed its case against Grand Canyon University, but rescinded its fine and has “also committed to no longer disproportionately targeting Christian colleges and universities and to affirming the rights of Christian colleges and universities to act in accordance with their faith-based identity.”

Conscience Violations

In numerous cases, the Biden administration also failed or refused to prosecute federal conscience violation cases, allowing institutions to coerce Christians into violating their sincerely held religious beliefs or penalizing them for adhering to their Christian morals. In one example, the Biden DOJ dropped a lawsuit against the University of Vermont Medical Center for compelling Christian employees to participate in committing abortions.

“This case is emblematic of the Biden Administration’s approach to conscience enforcement: When the scope of federal protections was legally contested, the Administration generally chose the interpretation least protective of religious objectors and resolved active enforcement matters through administrative means, if possible, rather than litigation,” the Trump DOJ’s report comments. “Government inaction of this kind is an especially damaging source of anti-Christian bias precisely because it is difficult to see and harder to remedy.”

Anti-Christian Policy

The Biden administration’s anti-Christian bias was not relegated to enforcement actions, but also to policy choices. The administration supported the “Equality Act,” which would have “fully eliminate[d] statutory religious protections for Christians and other religions that hold traditional social values” by barring, without exemption, “discrimination” on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity in areas such as public accommodations and facilities, education, federal funding, employment, housing, credit, and the jury system. Although numerous academics and religious leaders warned that the legislation would amount to a significant infringement on First Amendment rights, the Biden administration forcefully supported the legislation in Congress.

“Although the Biden Administration was ultimately unsuccessful in its push to enact the Equality Act, it sought to implement the same policy goals wherever possible through executive actions, guidance memoranda, and rulemakings,” the Trump DOJ’s report announced. The administration’s “overbroad” application of the U.S. Supreme Court’s holding in Bostock v. Clayton County targeted Christians and Christian organizations for their biblical worldview on biological sex and human sexuality, while Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) worked overtime to entrench transgender ideology in the federal bureaucracy and classify gender transition procedures as necessary and life-saving medicine.

Biden’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) “dismissed sincerely held religious beliefs regarding sexual orientation and gender identity as ‘discrimination in hiring … cloaked as religious practice,’” while the Department of Education likewise shifted its non-discrimination policies to promote and hide gender transition procedures for children. The Departments of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Labor, and Agriculture all similarly revised their guidance on key statutes and legal precedents, such as Bostock and Titles VII, IX, and X of the Civil Rights Act, to shield progressive agenda items.

In many cases, when Christians and other professionals or professional organizations suggested, based on empirical evidence and research, that gender transition procedures (especially for children) may not be harmless or beneficial, the Biden administration and its agencies often sidelined or outright silenced those voices, or ignored them. For example, when the British government published the extensive Cass Review, detailing the significant dangers posed by exposing minors to gender transition procedures and ultimately terminating the British government’s support for the practice, the Biden administration “maintained that the report did not alter their support for minors’ access to sex-rejecting procedures and medical intervention.”

The Biden administration’s policy decisions also encouraged state and local governments to bar Christian couples from participating in foster programs, claiming that the couples’ sincerely held religious beliefs on biological sex or human sexuality would pose a threat to children who identify as transgender or homosexual. Other actions targeted talk-based Christian therapy designed to assist those struggling with unwanted same-sex attraction and even attempted to bar Christians from practicing therapy in many areas.

Numerous executive actions were also taken by the Biden administration to proliferate the practice of abortion, even after the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling overturning Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Biden administration actions attempted to skirt federal statutes barring taxpayer funding from being used for abortions and directly used federal agencies to facilitate abortions. The Biden administration regularly replaced departmental faith offices with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) offices and repeatedly sidelined Christians and Christian organizations.

Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS), for example, hosted 59 meetings and roundtables with non-Christian faith-based organizations to discuss potential terrorist threats and safety. The Biden DHS hosted only two such meetings with Christian organizations. The Trump DOJ referred to Family Research Council’s report on increasing hostility against Christians to note that the “disparity is notable given that Christians comprise an estimated 62 percent of the U.S. population and have faced increased hostility and violence in recent years.”

Other Biden administration actions that targeted Christians included adverse employment actions, such as eliminating religious discrimination safeguards in the EEOC and issuing blanket denials of religious exemption requests, particularly those related to COVID-19 restrictions and mandates. According to a survey of federal employees, nearly one third (30.1%) were denied pay based on their religious objections to COVID-19 mandates, while others were denied travel, reassigned, lost their security clearances, or were formally reprimanded. Nearly one fifth (18.3%) reported having been removed from their posts and nearly 12% said that they were fired.

What’s Next?

While the Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias will continue its work through 2027, it has already begun working to eradicate anti-Christian bias from the federal government. Pursuant to the taskforce’s recommendations, most federal agencies have opened and operate faith offices, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has issued memos reinforcing religious liberties, and the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) has issued guidance on religious liberty protections afforded by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, in addition to other actions taken by federal agencies. The task force will publish further remedial actions taken in its 2027 report.

Religious liberty advocates have thanked the Trump administration for its efforts to tackle the issue of anti-Christian bias and the weaponization of the federal government against Americans of faith, but have warned that there is still much work to be done. “This is a very good report on the pervasive anti-Christian bias under the Biden administration; capturing many of the domestic religious liberty concerns we have noticed in recent years, especially on marriage, family, sexuality, and life issues — as well as hostility against Christianity in general,” said Family Research Council President Tony Perkins in a statement. He noted that hostility towards Christians skyrocketed under Biden’s tenure, including violent attacks on pro-life pregnancy resource centers and Christian churches. “Yet, as this DOJ report shows, the Biden administration did very little in response and instead weaponized its resources to target Christians including imprisoning grandmothers praying outside of abortion centers.”

“This report does raise questions about what comes next. And what happens the next time a radical progressive like President Biden comes to power? We must ensure this targeting never happens again under any future administration,” Perkins asserted. “We must ensure that the bedrock of American society and culture is placed on a firm footing in which freedom is respected for everyone. What better time to do this than our nation’s 250th birthday? Religious freedom is seldom handed to the passive; it is claimed by those who exercise it even when a hostile culture says they may not.”

“Now is the time to take this insight and put in safeguards at the federal, state, and local levels that will prevent future Democrat administrations from hollowing out the First Amendment, making it difficult for them to pervert America,” Perkins continued. “Ultimately, the preventative prescription to anti-Christian bias from our own government is Christians sharing the gospel and living out their faith in a God honoring way. While we should press on the government to act justly, it’s up to the church to change the culture that has given rise to this anti-Christian bias.”

During “Washington Watch” Thursday, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Varone indicated that the DOJ is currently investigating whether leftist NGOs violated the law in their dealings with the Biden administration. “At minimum, it would violate best practices,” she noted. “And so we’d start with that. There are concerns that some of the conduct here may have gone further. I can’t get into specifics because DOJ handles all of its internal personnel and investigations privately. But as the report mentions, appropriate referrals have been made.”

Travis Weber, vice president for Policy and Government Affairs at FRC, said in comments to The Washington Stand, “With this report, President Trump and his administration have issued an important corrective to the anti-Christian bias that was tolerated, advanced, and/or enabled for too long by the Biden administration. Yet we must not stop here, but rather must determine next steps and consider how this hostility manifests in our culture and the local communities on which our country is knit together.” He added, “For America to flourish in the long-term, we must move beyond the political ‘see-saw’ we are currently on and regain that ‘common ground’ of national consensus on which freedom rests.”

“We must remember that what the Trump administration is responding to politically is — more deeply — a cultural and spiritual issue,” Weber observed. “We are often ‘responding’ to bias and hostility. Instead, we need to think proactively about how to shift our culture back toward a respect for freedom and faith — and the role that both play in society, for the benefit of ALL members of society. As the Trump administration considers what to do with the findings detailed in this report, Christians in America also need to be asking ourselves the same question: ‘What’s our next step?’”

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. ©2026 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

DOJ Weaponization: Overview of Biden’s Campaign Against Pro-Life Groups and Individuals

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For years, many Americans have suspected that the federal government was no longer applying the law evenly, especially when it came to deeply divisive cultural issues.

Now, the Department of Justice’s own report appears to confirm those concerns.

In a sweeping internal review, the DOJ examined hundreds of thousands of records, internal communications, and enforcement decisions tied specifically to the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, commonly known as the FACE Act. According to the report, investigators reviewed approximately 700,000 documents as part of this effort.

What they say they found is deeply troubling.

The report concludes that under the Biden administration, the DOJ “weaponized the FACE Act in several key ways.”

This is not a claim made by outside critics. It is the conclusion of the DOJ’s own internal review.

A Law Meant to Protect, Allegedly Used to Target

The FACE Act was originally designed to protect access to reproductive health services, including abortion clinics, as well as places of worship. In theory, it is a neutral law, one that applies equally regardless of ideology.

But according to the DOJ’s findings, that neutrality did not hold.

Instead, the report alleges that enforcement during the Biden years became selective. Cases involving abortion clinics were prioritized, while attacks on pregnancy resource centers and churches were often minimized or ignored.

At the same time, the DOJ maintained regular contact with pro-abortion advocacy groups, while similar engagement with pro-life organizations was notably absent.

The result, according to the report, was not simply uneven enforcement, but a pattern.

Coordination and Monitoring of Pro-Life Activists

One of the most serious allegations in the report involves coordination between federal authorities and outside advocacy organizations.

According to the findings, pro-abortion groups provided information about pro-life activists, including their movements, protest activity, and identities. That information was allegedly retained and used over time by federal authorities before charges were brought.

If accurate, this raises significant concerns about the monitoring of Americans engaged in constitutionally protected activity.

It also introduces a troubling question. At what point does coordination become targeting?

Case Studies That Raise Red Flags

The report does not rely on generalities alone. It highlights specific prosecutions that, taken together, paint a broader picture.

In one case, evidence that was not provided to the defense was allegedly made available to abortion providers. In another, concerns were raised about potential bias against Christian defendants during jury selection. In yet another, a pro-life activist was arrested at his home in a highly visible federal operation, only to be acquitted by a jury.

Each case, on its own, might be explained away. But the report presents them as part of a consistent pattern.

A Stark Disparity in Sentencing

Perhaps the most quantifiable finding involves sentencing.

According to the report, federal prosecutors sought significantly longer prison sentences for pro-life defendants compared to pro-abortion defendants. The numbers cited show an average request of approximately 26.8 months for pro-life individuals versus 12.3 months for their counterparts.

Actual sentences followed a similar trend, with pro-life defendants receiving substantially longer prison terms on average.

Numbers do not tell the whole story, but they do reveal patterns that are difficult to ignore.

Beyond Prosecution: Questions of Alignment

The report also raises concerns that go beyond courtroom decisions.

It alleges that DOJ personnel may have assisted pro-abortion organizations in securing funding, including providing support or references for grant applications.

If true, this suggests a level of alignment between federal authorities and one side of a deeply contested national issue that goes well beyond enforcement.

What Changed—and Why This Matters Now

This review did not happen in a vacuum.

It followed a series of major developments, including presidential pardons issued on January 23, 2025, as well as new executive directives and internal DOJ guidance.

In response to the findings, the DOJ states that it has already begun limiting future FACE Act prosecutions to cases involving serious aggravating factors or extraordinary circumstances. Some existing cases have reportedly been dismissed, and internal disciplinary actions have been initiated, though details remain undisclosed.

The Beginning of a Larger Examination

This report is not the end of the story. It is the beginning.

If its findings are accurate, they raise fundamental questions about equal justice, the role of federal law enforcement, and the protection of First Amendment rights in America.

In the days ahead, we will examine the evidence in detail.

We will look closely at the cases highlighted in the report. We will analyze the data behind the sentencing disparities. And we will explore the broader question of whether federal power was used not just to enforce the law, but to shape the outcome of a national debate.

Because in a country built on equal justice under law, even the appearance of imbalance demands scrutiny.

And if that balance has truly been lost, the consequences reach far beyond any single case.

Next in the series:
DOJ Weaponization: The Double Standard in Prosecuting Pro-Life vs. Pro-Abortion Activists

AUTHOR

Martin Mawyer

Martin Mawyer is the founder of the Digital Intelligence Project and the President of Christian Action Network. He is the host of the “Shout Out Patriots” podcast, and author of When Evil Stops Hiding. For more action alerts, cultural commentary, and real-world campaigns defending faith, family, and freedom, subscribe to Patriot Majority Report.

©2026 . All rights reserved.

Please visit the Patriot Majority Report substack.

10 Beautiful Bills for a Better America

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As Congress debates major issues regarding taxes, tariffs, and trade, it would be heartening for faith, family, and freedom Americans if it found time to pass topical bills that address other pressing concerns such as protecting unborn life, dismantling taxpayer-funded abortion, conscience protections, and more.

A number of these measures have been introduced in diverse forms in past Congresses indisposed to adopt them. Others are ideas whose time had not yet come. But in these still-early days of the 119th Congress, the two chambers of Congress, one of which had time for Senator Cory Booker’s (D-N.J.) around-the-clock oration, might well find room on their schedules to debate measures that accommodate conscience, support mothers and families, and protect an underappreciated national responsibility — the collection and analysis of social metrics.

Here are 10 measures that fit this general description, with the acknowledgement that they are only a sample of proposals that are within striking distance of adoption and worthy of congressional attention even in a crowded calendar.

Hawley Child Tax Credit Expansion

Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) champions an expansion of the child tax credit, a longtime bipartisan proposition, to $5,000 from its current value of $2,000 per child. The credit would reportedly be refundable against payroll taxes, be available during the year in which the child was conceived, and be paid out over the course of the year rather than remitted as a lump sum at tax time.

S. 4524, Lankford Conscience Protection Act of 2024

Reintroduced most recently in June 2024, legislation like this is urgently needed in an environment where existing federal conscience protections languished unenforced in the Biden years, and states like Illinois and Washington are moving to require physicians or pregnancy centers to refer for abortions against their convictions that these actions are morally and ethically wrong. S. 4524 would have reinforced several existing federal conscience laws and grant individuals and institutions a private right of action to assert their conscience claims in federal court. The proposed law would clarify that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) must investigate alleged conscience violations and can suspend federal funds for health-related services if the violators do not respect conscience.

H.R. 796, Miller Second Chance for Moms Act

Introduced on January 28, 2025 by Rep. Mary Miller (R-Ill.), this legislation would amend the basic federal food, drug, and cosmetics legislation to require the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to mandate a warning label be placed on the abortion drug mifepristone. The warning label would advise women of the availability of an abortion pill reversal (APR) protocol that can often rescue their baby after the woman has taken the drug. It would require the secretary of HHS to create or contract with a 24/7, toll-free hotline to advise women on how to access abortion pill reversal with referrals limited solely to providers of APR.

H.R. 7, Smith No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion and Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act of 2025

Introduced on January 22, 2025, Rep. Christopher Smith’s (R-N.J.) bill is an expanded version of previous anti-funding measures and now has 81 House of Representatives co-sponsors. The bill would make permanent the terms of the Hyde Amendment, which permits funding of abortion only in cases of rape, incest, or where a physical disorder, injury, or illness would threaten a woman’s life. It would apply to the full sweep of Hyde Amendment provisions applicable now to annual spending bills. H.R. 7 would also bar federal subsidies for the portion of health insurance premiums that pay for abortion coverage.

H.R. 271 and 272, Fischbach Defund Planned Parenthood and Protecting Life and Taxpayers Acts

These measures, introduced on January 14, 2025, would prohibit Planned Parenthood from accessing any discretionary or mandatory federal funds because of its immersion in the provision and promotion of abortion. The Protecting Life Act would require all federally-funded entities to certify that they will not carry out abortions or provide funds to any other entity that carries out abortions beyond the terms permitted by the Hyde Amendment. The Senate version of the Defund Planned Parenthood Act, S. 203, was introduced on January 23, 2025 by Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and has 11 co-sponsors. In addition, a coalition of 150 pro-life groups has called on Congress to cut funding for Planned Parenthood in the upcoming budget reconciliation bill.

S. 334, Risch American Values Act

This bill carries forward pro-life foreign assistance policy. Introduced on January 30, 2025 by Senator James Risch (R-Idaho), the bill would amend the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 to ensure that no appropriated funds may be used to pay for abortion as a method of family planning or to motivate or coerce any person to be sterilized. The bill would also bar the use of funds to pay for biomedical research related to techniques of induced abortion or coerced sterilization. The bill has a dozen co-sponsors.

H.R. 627/S. 178, Norman-Ernst Ensuring Accurate and Complete Abortion Data Reporting Act of 2025

Introduced by Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) on the House side and Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) in the Senate, this is a critical piece of legislation that will ensure the demographic and some health implications of induced abortion are tracked and analyzable to the extent possible in a national, public framework. The urgency of this legislation, which would redress a half century of voluntary and incomplete national reporting, is all the greater thanks to the rapid expansion of chemical abortion conducted with little to no medical evaluation or supervision. The bill notes the disturbing facts that not a single data point regarding abortion is publicly available for all 50 states, and that three states, constituting 15% of U.S. abortion volume, share no reports at all with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

H.R. 578, Roy FACE Act Repeal Act of 2025

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) has led the fight against the much-abused Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, a law that was weaponized during the Biden administration to target right-to-life demonstrators with vindictive prosecutions and harsh penalties. President Trump, as one of his initial executive actions, pardoned men and women, including grandmothers, who had been sentenced to lengthy prison terms for engaging in protests, while making little or no progress in identifying or prosecuting individuals who attacked churches and pregnancy help centers. Absent repeal of this legislation, Roy says, biased enforcement will promptly resume in a future administration. “Data my office obtained from Merrick Garland’s DOJ showed that 97% of FACE Act prosecutions from 1994-2024 were against pro-life Americans.”

H.R. 722, Burlison, Life at Conception Act

The United States has seen a recent spike in abortions, beginning before the 2022 Dobbs ruling but continuing in its wake, with one source reporting that our nation’s abortion toll has risen to more than one million abortions per year. As Congress and the states look for ways to support mothers, the fact remains that for much of the country, the legal status of the unborn is a void that must be filled. It is lawful in much of the land to dismember a child in the womb; to destroy a child in the third trimester or a human embryo because it is affected by Down syndrome or is not the preferred sex; to set aside a child born alive and deny him or her life-saving care; to use public funds to pay for and promote abortion; to leave a woman alone in a bathroom to expel the new life from her womb; or to ship abortion drugs across state lines with little or no medical support.

To address these wrongs, legislation is needed that not only delivers unprecedented levels of support for men and women to act for the good of their child, but to safeguard each and every innocent life. The Life at Conception Act, with 73 co-sponsors, faces a steep challenge in this Congress but it too would be a beautiful bill, one with the added virtue of honoring our best hope for a better future for America.

AUTHOR

Chuck Donovan

Chuck Donovan served in the Reagan White House as a senior writer and as Deputy Director of Presidential Correspondence until early 1989. He was executive vice president of Family Research Council, a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation, and founder/president of Charlotte Lozier Institute from 2011 to 2024. He has written and spoken extensively on issues in life and family policy.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

As Trump Hands Out Pardons, Republicans Begin Planning How To Undo Years Of Government Abuse

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While President Trump issues pardons for individuals targeted by the Biden administration, Republicans are gearing up to tackle the past four years of government weaponization, multiple GOP representatives told the Daily Caller.

Trump signed an executive order Monday aimed at investigating the Biden administration’s weaponization of the intelligence community (IC) and Department of Justice (DOJ), and he pardoned or commuted the sentences of approximately 1,500 Jan. 6 defendants. He also pardoned Ross Ulbricht, the Silk Road founder, who was sentenced to serve two life terms and another 40 years in prison.

Meanwhile, former President Joe Biden preemptively pardoned Dr. Anthony Fauci, Jan. 6 committee members, and Gen. Mark Milley. He also pardoned five family members just before Trump’s swearing-in.

“These pardons and everything that [has] taken place for family members, as well as Fauci and all the [Jan. 6] committee members, this is unbelievable,” North Carolina Rep. Mark Harris told the Caller, adding that Republicans could get an opportunity to subpoena those individuals.

Congress will publicly investigate and expose government weaponization, Republicans told the Caller.

“We’re going to do the investigative work in exposing and uncovering this in a very, very public way, and then the [DOJ] — which is now going to be politically unbiased and fair in actually upholding the rule of law — can start taking the information that we uncover and then pushing forward with prosecutions,” Texas Rep. Brandon Gill said.

It’s not unusual for Congress to submit aggressive letters and publishing reports on weaponization, but Republicans now have the opportunity to take decisive action.

“There is a time for strongly worded letters,” Kansas Rep. Derek Schmidt told the Caller. “There is a time for reports, but I think this is a time for an act of a substantive law that locks in change, protects liberty and ensures that we’re making a difference, not just for the next few years, but for the next few generations.”

The Biden administration targeted Jan. 6 defendants, a pro-Trump memesmith, Trump himself, Christians and pro-life activists. Conservatives have called on the Trump administration to pardon those targeted by the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act.

“I think it’s criminal what we have allowed to have happen to people, even to this day, I’m hopeful that perhaps President Trump will pardon these folks that are being held in prison over just being active in the pro-life movement,” Rep. Harris said on Tuesday.

President Trump pardoned 23 pro-life activists prosecuted by the Biden administration on Thursday, just one day before the annual March for Life.

Biden’s DOJ was responsible for over a quarter of all prosecutions in the law’s 30 year history, the Caller first reported. Biden’s FBI raided the homes of pro-life Christians Paul Vaughn and Mark Houck.

Biden’s DOJ used a Reconstruction-era law to target its political opponents, specifically the conspiracy against rights charge, which was implemented to protect the rights of recently enfranchised black voters. It employed this law to enhance the sentences of pro-life activists charged under the FACE Act.

“[The FACE Act] is being used as a bludgeon to take innocent people. How you can take someone who is praying on their knees outside of an abortion clinic and have him spend years in jail because of that,” Texas Rep. Brian Babin told the Caller.

“This is a weaponization of this law — misinterpretation, misuse of it, if you will — and it is another example of weaponization [of the] federal government by the wrong people.”

While Republicans seemed optimistic about the next four years, an entrenched bureaucracy may impede their agenda. Congress needs to be more aggressive in using its “power of the purse,” Rep. Gill told the Caller.

“I think that we’ve got to be a lot more, as a Congress, be a lot more aggressive about using the power of the purse,” he said. He pointed to the FBI raiding the homes of pro-life activists and reportedly targeting parents protesting school board meetings.

“I think that until we start playing hardball with them the way they’re playing with us, none of this is going to end,” Rep. Gill added.

Republicans are less trusting of the FBI than Democrats, according to a 2022 poll by the APM Research Lab. The poll also showed that the proportion of Americans who believe FBI agents are fair declined by eight percentage points from 2018 to 2022.

“There are plenty of serious problems that make our citizens’ lives far, far more dangerous, that could use far more resources,” Rep. Schmidt said. “And so I hope we will push federal law enforcement authorities to refocus on those basics and move away from the more political types of work that have been done over the last four years.”

A suspected terrorist who pledged allegiance to ISIS in the summer of 2024 later went on to commit a terrorist attack in New Orleans on New Year’s Day, apparently escaping the bureau’s radar. The New Orleans Field Office was also a staunch supporter of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, according to its social media posts advertising Diversity Agent Recruiting events.

In addition to the IC being perceived as serving a political agenda, many of its surveillance tools have come under greater scrutiny from Republicans.

The FBI surveilled parents protesting school board meetings, former agents previously told the Caller. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was used to spy on a staffer during Trump’s first campaign. FISA Section 702, which allows for the warrantless surveillance of American citizens, has received pushback from many conservatives.

“Quite frankly, in some of my briefings by some of these bureaucracies, I would look at the FBI — there might be a number of agencies across the table from me giving me my briefing — and I looked at the FBI and said, you abused this process,” Rep. Babin told the Caller. “It needs to be changed, needs to be reformed.”

The intelligence agencies have a variety of tools to conduct surveillance, and Rep. Gill argued that libertarian critics of the surveillance state have been “vindicated.”

“Everything they said about the Patriot Act turned out to be true,” he said. “Everything they said about giving virtually unchecked powers to the administrative state for national security purposes has been true, everything they said about that being weaponized against American citizens.”

The Republicans who spoke to the Caller were overall optimistic about the Trump administration and Congress’s abilities to undo the government weaponization of the past four years. However, some acknowledged it will take time before significant changes are enacted.

“I think this is something Trump will begin and get a lot done in four years, but this is probably going to be a long term process,” Rep. Gill said. “You know, we didn’t get here overnight. We’ve had problems with the FBI and CIA for decades.”

AUTHOR

Eireann Van Natta

Intelligence state reporter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

436 Church Attacks in 2023, Zero Prosecutions under the FACE Act, Notes House Hearing

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The Biden-Harris administration did not prosecute a single one of the hundreds of attacks against churches that took place last year under a 1994 law designed to protect houses of worship, a congressional hearing established on Wednesday, citing research from Family Research Council. Even as violence and vandalism against churches and pro-life centers skyrocketed over the last two years, 92% of Biden administration cases using that law targeted pro-life advocates.

Those facts emerged Wednesday during a House Judiciary hearing about the implementation of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, signed by President Bill Clinton in 1994. The FACE Act explicitly punishes anyone who “intentionally damages or destroys the property of a place of religious worship” in 18 U.S. Code §248(a)(3), imposing a $10,000 fine and a jail sentence of up to six months for a first conviction. Each subsequent conviction can add $25,000 in fines and up to 18 months in prison for nonviolent protests, or up to 10 years if the defendant is convicted of causing any bodily injury.

“Since the start of the Biden-Harris administration until May 2024, the DOJ had brought a total of 24 FACE Act prosecutions against 55 defendants, with only two of these cases concerning attacks on pregnancy resource centers. To this day, the FACE Act has never been used in defense of a church since it was passed in 1994,” said the subcommittee chairman Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas). In all, 50 of the 55 defendants were pro-life, and the department obtained 34 convictions, according to data from the Biden Justice Department.

“Statues of Lady Justice show her wearing a blindfold, because it is not supposed to matter who is being judged, what they believe, or who they voted for. Unfortunately, over the last four years, the Biden-Harris administration has weaponized this act [through] disproportionately targeting pro-life Americans for FACE Act violations while simultaneously failing to protect pregnancy resource facilities, despite being the target of growing violence,” said Roy.

‘Those Who Hate Wisdom Love Death’

Although the law putatively covers churches, it has never been used to protect America’s first freedom as churches come increasingly under attack after the May 2022 leak of the Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade.

“The Family Research Council identified 436 attacks on churches just in 2023,” testified Erin Hawley, senior counsel and vice president at the Alliance Defending Freedom. “Last year, Arielle Del Turco with the Family Research Council reported to this committee over 400 incidents of hostile acts directed at churches … including hundreds of acts of vandalism, dozens of arson attacks, and incidents involving guns or bomb threats.”

“There have been zero — zero — prosecutions under the FACE Act for that violence,” noted Hawley.

“Those who hate wisdom love death,” said Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-Wyo.), paraphrasing Proverbs 8:36. “And I think that’s what we’re dealing with here.”

Technically, the report — “Hostility Against Churches Is on the Rise in the United States | Analyzing Incidents from 2018-2023” by Del Turco — documented 436 church attacks during the first 11 months of 2023, a whopping 800% increase over six years.

FRC also documented 67 acts of violence or vandalism against pro-life pregnancy centers between the Dobbs decision leak and May 2023, 39 assaults against pro-life churches by October 2022, and 24 attacks on pro-life organizations by January 2023. Hawley cited some specific attacks:

  • On June 7, 2022, CompassCare’s office in Buffalo, New York, was firebombed and tagged with spray paint reading, “Jane was here.”
  • On June 10, 2022, the Gresham Pregnancy Resource Center in Gresham, Oregon was burned.
  • On June 25, 2022, Life Choices Free Pregnancy Services in Longmont, Colorado, was firebombed and spraypainted with the message, “if abortions aren’t safe, neither are you.”

Hawley cited numerous other hostile acts against pro-life women’s centers in her unabridged, written testimony.

Pregnancy resource centers make a “strange target,” since they’re giving away diapers and baby formula for free, noted Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Calif.).

‘I Became a Slave to Ideological Tyrants’: Pro-Life Advocate Remembers

At the hearing, Hawley and her fellow witnesses detailed ways “the Biden administration has weaponized the [FACE] Act to target pro-life individuals,” said Hawley. “The Biden DOJ has upped the ante, placing pro-life Americans in as much jeopardy as possible.” Steve Crampton, senior counsel at the Thomas More Society, noted that the Biden administration has invoked the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 “for the first time in our nation’s history” to accuse pro-life advocates of engaging in a “conspiracy against rights.”

The act increases the jail sentence for a nonviolent first violation from six months to more than 10 years in prison.

One of the people facing the barrel of a federal gun was pro-life advocate Paul Vaughn, arrested in 2022 for a pro-life demonstration in Tennessee. After Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Pa.) invoked Project 2025, Vaughn replied, “I would like to tell you about the DOJ’s Project 2022. It happened on October 5, 2022, at approximately 7:15 in the morning, when my house was assaulted, my wife and children were terrorized, and I was kidnapped at gun point by four armed men.”

“Lethal force was abused to abridge my God-given and constitutionally secured rights. At the moment of being placed in handcuffs, I became a slave to ideological tyrants, either the ones holding the weapons or the ones they obeyed,” remembered a traumatized Vaughn. “The process is the punishment.”

“Government has been weaponized against We the People,” said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), citing the similar arrest of pro-life advocate Mark Houck by heavily armed federal agents in front of his wife and seven children.

Reps. Scanlon and Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) held that the disparate enforcement of the law came about because pro-life advocates violate it more often. Yet one study found pro-life centers were 22 times more likely to be attacked than abortion facilities.

Despite that evidence, President Joe Biden formed the Reproductive Rights Task Force, led by Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta, in July 2022 to combat state pro-life protections and prosecute sidewalk counselors. “DOJ continues to robustly enforce the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act,” boasted a “fact sheet” from the White House Task Force on Reproductive Healthcare Access. Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland, stated last December that the entire department is “working to ensure that prosecutors across the country are equipped to bring FACE Act cases. And we have emphasized that Civil Rights Division attorneys are always available for consultation and technical assistance.”

Targeting peaceful pro-life Christians singing hymns in the lobby of an abortion facility seems unusual “in an atmosphere where we’re told police officers should deescalate” for violent criminals, noted outgoing Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.). “That must stop, and I guarantee you they will stop in the next administration.”

“I can assure you, we will have justice back in America on January 20,” agreed Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-Texas).

When pro-abortion domestic terrorists are prosecuted, they tend to get lighter sentences than required by law. Judge William Conley, an Obama appointee, sentenced the man who confessed to firebombing the Wisconsin Family Action in May 2022, Hridindu Sankar Roychowdhury, to 7.5 years rather than the 20-year maximum sentence allowed by federal law.

“While we expect the incoming administration to end this horrific practice of the DOJ, that is not good enough. The American people deserve to know that their rights are not going to be abused no matter which administration is in power,” said Roy.

Roy: Repeal the FACE Act

Roy introduced the FACE Act Repeal Act of 2023 (H.R. 5577), which would apply to any FACE Act prosecution underway at the time of its passage, last September. The legislation currently has 47 cosponsors, including Reps. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), Chris Smith (R-N.J.), Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), and Greg Steube (R-Fla.).

Crampton noted that, since Roe v. Wade has been repealed, the FACE Act guards a non-existent right. “There is therefore no federal constitutional right to abortion, and the very reason for FACE’s existence no longer exists. Under the well-established doctrine of cessante ratione legis, cessat ipsa lex, ‘when the reason for a law ceases, the law itself ceases,’” he testified.

“Today’s hearing on the FACE Act should highlight how it has been repeatedly weaponized by corrupt bureaucrats and officials against peaceful pro-life advocates. The committee should call on their colleagues to abolish this federal law if it will continue to be unevenly applied by pro-abortion radicals in government to punish peaceful pro-life activists while attacks on pregnancy centers and churches continue unabated,” said Tommy Valentine, director of the Catholic Accountability Project at CatholicVote, in a statement emailed to The Washington Stand. “We hope that under President Trump’s watch, true impartiality and justice will be restored to our governing agencies, and the exploitation of governmental power which we have seen run rampant under the Biden administration will no longer be tolerated.”

Democrats Try to Tie Pro-Life Republicans to Violence

Democrats on the committee accused Republicans of stoking violence against abortionists by repealing the 1994 law.

“The motivation here is very clear: In repealing the FACE Act, they would invite every anti-abortion extremist to use violence, threats, intimidation, to block access to abortion nationwide,” said Scanlon. “They knowingly enable dangerous and hostile rhetoric … and ultimately, that makes them complicit in the consequences of those actions.”

“Anti-abortion extremists continue to use violence, threats, and disruption to curb access to abortion, so Republicans want to repeal the law that protects … from these ongoing threats,” claimed Nadler.

But the Thomas More Society holds that the act is unconstitutional and must be overturned on the grounds of sound jurisprudence.

‘Promises Made, Promises Kept’

Roy said the next administration “must act to reverse these wrongful imprisonments, reuniting families who have been collateral damage of this administration. The Trump administration should consider pardoning and commuting” the sentences of those wrongfully targeted.

President-elect Donald Trump has promised to pardon peaceful pro-life advocates and other “political prisoners” who have been convicted of FACE Act violations or similarly trumped-up federal charges. “I will appoint a special task force to rapidly review the cases of every political prisoner who’s been unjustly persecuted by the Biden administration … so that I can study the situation very quickly and sign their pardons or commutations on day one,” promised President Trump, who then sought the Republican presidential nomination, in his address to the 2023 Pray Vote Stand Summit. “Never again will the federal government be used to target religious believers.”

“I will govern by a simple motto: Promises made, promises kept,” said Trump in his 2024 victory speech.

“Unequal application of the law is not truly law; it is tyranny imposed on those [who] didn’t have the power by those who do have it. That’s contrary to everything we believe as Americans,” said Roy. The Democratic administration’s history of unequal prosecution and protection highlights the need for “permanent and fundamental reforms at the Department of Justice.”

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Biden-Harris Admin. Continues Streak of Convicting and Sentencing Pro-Lifers

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The Biden-Harris administration’s Department of Justice (DOJ) has sentenced three more pro-life Americans for defending the unborn. On Tuesday, James Zastrow, Eva Zastrow, and Paul Place were sentenced to 90 days of home detention and three years of probation for violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, according to ABC News. The trio, along with Eva Edl, were convicted by a federal magistrate judge of misdemeanor FACE Act violations in April, relating to a 2021 peaceful protest outside a Nashville-area abortion facility.

Six other pro-lifers were convicted in January on FACE Act violations related to the same protest. Four of them were sentenced earlier in July. Paul Vaughn and Dennis Green were sentenced to three years of supervised release, Coleman Boyd was fined $10,000 and sentenced to five years of probation, and protest organizer Calvin Zastrow was sentenced to six months in jail and three years of supervised release. Prosecutors with the Biden-Harris administration’s DOJ had requested significantly more severe sentences, but U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger cited the motivation of the pro-lifers’ sincerely-held religious beliefs and their “good works in the community” in her sentencing.

Defendant Caroline Davis pleaded guilty to misdemeanor FACE Act violations last year and was sentenced earlier this year to three years of probation. Sentencing has been postponed for Heather Idoni, Chester Gallagher, and 89-year-old Eva Eld, who all face a trial this month in Michigan on similar charges related to pro-life protests. Edl, who survived imprisonment in a communist prison camp in Yugoslavia after World War II, told The Daily Signal in an interview that she does not expect to survive prison after having been convicted of FACE Act violations. “When I was indicted, I began to prepare to die there,” she said in April. “There’s no guarantee that I survive it.”

Prosecution of pro-lifers has become a standard for the DOJ under President Joe Biden and his Vice President, Kamala Harris. Last year, nine pro-life activists with the Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising (PAAU) group were convicted of FACE Act violations for protesting outside an abortion facility in the Washington, D.C. area and were immediately jailed prior to sentencing. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly commented at the time that she deemed FACE Act violations to be “crime[s] of violence.” PAAU Activism Director Lauren Handy was eventually sentenced to nearly five years in prison.

Catholic father Mark Houck was indicted in 2022 on alleged violations of the FACE Act outside a Philadelphia-area abortion facility. Although Houck agreed to cooperate with prosecutors if charges were brought, the DOJ instead sent a team of approximately two dozen FBI agents armed with automatic rifles and riot gear to raid Houck’s home and arrest him in front of his wife and children. Houck was acquitted at trial, but maintains that the raid on his home and subsequent prosecution are part of a broader effort by Biden’s DOJ to silence and intimidate pro-life Americans. According to a lawsuit filed in May, Houck’s children were traumatized by the FBI raid on their home. Houck’s is the only FACE Act prosecution case that the Biden administration has lost since taking power in 2021.

Last year, an FBI whistleblower reported that the agency had applied a special “threat tag,” originally intended to address threats against U.S. Supreme Court justices after Roe v. Wade was overturned, to pro-life Americans. According to DOJ data obtained by The Daily Caller, the Biden administration “is using a novel application of an 1870 statute to enhance the sentences of peaceful abortion protesters.” The DOJ has reportedly added “Conspiracy Against Rights” charges to FACE Act violation charges, ensuring that pro-lifers convicted of FACE Act violations face up to 10 years in prison. Additionally, 97% of FACE Act prosecutions since the law was enacted in 1994 have been against pro-life Americans, even though the law also protects churches and pregnancy resource centers.

“Once again, we see the Biden administration intent on making pro-life activists pay a high price for their attempts to protect unborn life,” said Arielle Del Turco, director of the Center for Religious Liberty at Family Research Council, in comments to The Washington Stand. “This is upsetting for the pro-lifers who received their sentence, but it is also indicative of a leftist-run DOJ that prioritizes targeting ideological opponents while ignoring attacks on churches, for example.”

According to an FRC report Del Turco authored, attacks against churches in the U.S. have increased by 800% since 2018. Between the beginning of 2018 and the end of 2023, there were over 700 vandalism attacks, 135 arson-related attacks, over 30 bomb threats, over 20 gun-related incidents, and a myriad of other attacks, assaults, and threats — all against churches. CatholicVote’s “Violence Tracker” reports that nearly 300 Catholic churches have been attacked since May of 2022, shortly before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

Erin Hawley, vice president of the Center for Life and Regulatory Practice at the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), noted that, at least over the course of 2022, no prosecutions were made against those who attacked churches or pregnancy resource centers, although 26 pro-life Americans were targeted with FACE Act prosecutions that year. Since Biden took office in 2021, there have been 55 FACE Act prosecutions, only five of which involved violent attacks against pregnancy resource centers. In total, the Biden administration’s FACE Act prosecutions over the course of less than four years accounts for a quarter of all FACE Act prosecutions over the past 30 years.

“This is particularly relevant now as the election season ramps up,” Del Turco observed, pointing to Vice President Harris’s complicity in the administration’s targeting of pro-life Americans. She recalled that Harris aggressively prosecuted reporter David Daleiden when he published video evidence that “Planned Parenthood was selling the body parts of aborted babies.” Del Turco pointed out that Planned Parenthood was donating to Harris’s senate campaign at the time. “If Harris is elected president, we can expect the attacks on pro-lifers that we’ve seen over the last four years to continue, or perhaps worsen,” Del Turco concluded.

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

EXCLUSIVE: DOJ Data Confirms Conservative Fears Biden Weaponized Justice System

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The Biden administration is using a novel application of an 1870 statute to enhance the sentences of peaceful abortion protesters, data provided exclusively to the Daily Caller confirms.

In the 30-year history of the Freedom of Access to Clinics (FACE) Act, the Biden Department of Justice (DOJ) in just over three years has levied over a quarter of the law’s total charges, most of which have carried this novel sentence enhancement, the data also shows.

The data, along with the unprecedented enhancement, provide fuel to criticisms from conservatives that the Biden admin is unfairly targeting pro-lifers and using the DOJ for political ends.

In some instances under previous administrations, threatening to harm or kill a clinic employee carried less severe punishments. Under Biden’s, however, elderly women peacefully protesting an abortion clinic have faced much harsher consequences. After the Supreme Court’s Roe vs Wade decision leak in 2022, hundreds of attacks were waged against pro-life pregnancy centers and churches, but the DOJ has only prosecuted five individuals for such offenses.

From 1994 to 2024, there were 205 cases against pro-life activists and only six against abortion activists, data provided to the Caller by Republican Texas Rep. Chip Roy’s office reveals. Prosecutions of pro-life individuals constitute roughly 97% of all FACE Act cases.

At least 55 of those cases were prosecuted during the Biden administration, only five of which involved attacks on pregnancy resource centers. In less than four years, Biden’s DOJ has accounted for over a quarter of all FACE prosecutions and approximately 24% of cases targeting pro-life activists, the data demonstrates.

The FACE Act became law in 1994 and prohibits “violent, threatening, damaging, and obstructive conduct intended to injure, intimidate, or interfere with the right to seek, obtain or provide reproductive health services,” according to the DOJ. The law also applies to pro-life pregnancy resource centers and places of worship.

Some claim, however, the Biden Administration is weaponizing FACE against individuals who protest abortion. In the past two years, FBI agents raided the homes of pro-life activists Mark Houck and Paul Vaughn (the former being acquitted and the latter escaping prison time) during Biden’s presidency.

FACE “has been politicized and abused to target peaceful pro-life advocates,” while activists “who violently attacked” pro-life clinics walk free, Erin Hawley, Vice President of the Center for Life and Regulatory Practice at the Alliance for Defending Freedom (ADF), told the Daily Caller.

She explained how the DOJ prosecuted at least 26 pro-life individuals in 2022 but zero activists “who obstructed or vandalized pregnancy care centers.”

In 2023, Roy and Republican Utah Sen. Mike Lee introduced legislation to repeal the FACE Act.

“Biden’s Department of Justice has brazenly weaponized the FACE Act against normal, everyday Americans across the political spectrum, simply because they are pro-life,” Roy stated in a press release.

The Caller reached out to the DOJ, but they did not answer questions about FACE directly, instead pointing to its website. The DOJ told the Caller to contact the FBI for more information regarding investigations into attacks on pregnancy centers and churches.

The FBI did not respond in time for publication, although in 2022, the agency told The Daily Signal it was investigating attacks on pregnancy resource centers and churches. The FBI would not share if it had arrested anyone in relation to the attacks.

From May 2022 to March 2024, there were at least 90 attacks on pro-life organizations and pregnancy resource centers, according to CatholicVote, which tracks attacks by abortion activists. The data is gathered from news reports, direct tips and public information the attackers posted online.

Many of the incidents appear to be associated with the pro-abortion groups Jane’s Revenge and Ruth Sent Us. Since May 2020, there have been over 400 attacks on Catholic churches, the website reports.

“Congress ought to repeal [FACE] immediately,” the Thomas More Society’s Senior Counsel, Steve Crampton, told the Caller. Crampton represented Vaughn during his FACE trial.

Crampton stated unequivocally that pro-life protests have not increased in aggression during the post-Roe era.

He said there was a lack of “hardcore” protests by pro-life activists after the Dobbs decision and contrasted that with the hundreds of attacks against churches and pro-life pregnancy centers.

Organizations like the National Abortion Federation (NAF) claimed attacks on abortion clinics increased in 2022. The NAF’s statistics are based on reports from facility members. A NAF report stated there was an increase in “clinic invasions,” or individuals who “fake appointments,” “force their way into the clinic” and “refuse to leave.”

They reported 20 clinic invasions in 2022. From 2020 to 2022, there were zero reported murders, attempted murders and bombings at abortion clinics. There were four reported incidents of arson and 101 acts of vandalism in 2022, though.

The Crime Prevention Center (CPC) also conducted a study in 2022, but it showed pro-life groups experienced over 22 times more violence than pro-choice organizations. CPC identified 135 attacks on pro-life groups from the date of the Supreme Court leak to September 24, 2022. There were only six cases concerning pro-choice groups. CPC said NAF’s 2021 report failed to provide a list of cases to substantiate the data.

Crampton argued there has not been an increase in pro-life protests, nonviolent or otherwise. He stated only a small percentage of pro-life individuals engage in demonstrations at abortion clinics.

He also noted how “for the first time in history,” Biden’s DOJ added underlying charges, specifically the felony Conspiracy Against Rights charge, to FACE Act prosecutions.

The Conspiracy Against Rights law prohibits two or more people from “conspir[ing] to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate” anyone exercising their constitutional rights. A violation of the law is punishable by fines and up to 10 years in prison, providing there is no kidnapping or sexual assault.

Crampton explained how the original purpose of the law – enacted in 1870 – was to protect newly enfranchised African American voters, but the Biden Administration “twisted” it to target peaceful pro-life activists exercising their First Amendment rights. Moreover, after the Dobbs decision, he said there was no constitutional right to an abortion.

President Bill Clinton nominated D.C.-based Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in 1997. She has sentenced at least nine defendants during Biden’s presidency, each time delivering severe punishments.

The Biden administration charged those defendants in 2022 with allegedly obstructing access to an abortion clinic in Washington, D.C. Each protester faced up to 11 years in prison, three years of supervised release and fines of up to $350,000, according to a DOJ press release.

The demonstrators protested the Washington Surgi-Clinic abortionist, Cesare Santangelo, who was accused of violating federal law by allegedly performing partial-birth abortions. Activists with the group Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising reportedly found five fetuses — which appeared to be victims of late term abortions — in a box of 115 fetuses outside the clinic.

Pro-life organizations and five House Republicans in 2024 called for investigations into the five abortions.

One demonstrator at the clinic was a 75 year-old woman, Paulette “Paula” Harlow. Kollar-Kotelly sentenced her to 24 months in prison for allegedly violating FACE and the Conspiracy Against Rights law by attending the demonstration, according to a DOJ press release. Another defendant, Lauren Handy, was sentenced to almost five years in prison.

Harlow’s husband expressed concerns about his wife’s health to the judge. The judge told Harlow that she should try to “remain alive” because it’s a “tenet of [her] religion,” according to LiveAction.

Past sentences under previous administrations demonstrate the unprecedented severity of the current punishments. (RELATED: Biden DOJ Hits Five Pro-Life Activists – Three Already Facing Prison For Blocking Abortion Clinic – With New Lawsuit)

During Clinton’s presidency, a self-proclaimed “anti-abortion activist” named J. Fred Hart, Jr. allegedly parked two trucks at an abortion clinic and blocked “vehicular access” to parking in 1997. The trucks were similar to the vehicle used in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah building in Oklahoma City, according to the DOJ. Bomb squads and arson experts investigated the trucks and determined they were empty. Hart was sentenced to four years probation (home detention for the first year), 200 hours of community service, mental health counseling, and a “special assessment” of $50.

In 2010, under President Obama’s DOJ, a man named Donald Hertz allegedly called an abortion clinic and threatened to kill a doctor and his family members. Hertz was sentenced to five years of probation, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Crampton said that without question punishments for violating FACE are harsher under Biden, pointing to the DOJ’s Reproductive Rights Task Force. He observed how the DOJ has yet to establish a Religious Rights Task Force, despite recent attacks on churches.

In July of 2022, shortly after Roe was overturned, the DOJ established the Reproductive Rights Task Force to “protect access to reproductive health care.” The task force aims to keep tabs on legislation and “enforcement actions” that threaten abortion access, according to a press release.

“The ‘Reproductive Rights’ task force is just a name they gave to a group that is pushing a pro-abortion agenda,” Hawley told the Caller.

Hawley linked to the DOJ’s website and noted that enforcing the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) was one of the purported objectives.

The Biden administration tried to use EMTALA to “force emergency room doctors to perform abortions that are illegal under Idaho law,” according to the ADF’s assessment of the State of Idaho v. The United States of America.

Hawley said the task force’s other objectives include enforcement of FACE and protecting abortion-inducing medication.

“Rather than abusing its power to target pro-life pregnancy centers, the DOJ should be protecting them and ensuring that women have access to real support and real healthcare,” Hawley emphasized.

Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the DOJ – Kristen Clarke – spearheads the National Task Force On Violence Against Reproductive Health Care Providers. It was established in 1998 after the shooting of an abortionist. Clark labeled the ADF a “hate group” and characterized Liberty University as a “fundamentalist Christian school” in 2018.

This separate task force coordinates with law enforcement and U.S. Attorneys’ Offices (USAOs) to investigate “incidents of abortion violence,” even though FACE ostensibly provides protections for pregnancy resource centers.

Eleven defendants – including Paul Vaughn – were charged on Oct. 5 2022, with allegedly using “force and physical obstruction” at a clinic in Mount Juliet, Tennessee, according to the DOJ. They faced the same harsh punishments, including up to 10 and half years in prison, $260,000 in fines and three years of supervised release.

Paul Vaughn ultimately escaped prison time, but it was a pyrrhic victory. Vaughn is now a convicted felon stripped of his right to vote and obtain a firearm, according to Crampton. He must answer to his probation officer and is also under house arrest.

The FACE Act applies to places of worship and pregnancy centers. The vast majority of prosecutions under the law, however, have targeted pro-life activists.

This past June, the DOJ sued five people for allegedly violating FACE by obstructing an abortion clinic in Florida.

Crampton said the law was not neutral.

“It was always about abortion.”

AUTHOR

EIREANN VAN NATTA

Contributor.

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