A shocking new report from the Trump administration has revealed the degree to which the Biden Department of Justice (DOJ) weaponized the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act against pro-life Americans – and violated their First Amendment rights in the process.
The new bombshell document, which runs nearly 900 pages and is accompanied by more than 800 pages of exhibits, gives official weight to what conservatives and pro-life advocates argued for years: federal authorities targeted sidewalk counselors, prayer volunteers, elderly activists, and other nonviolent demonstrators with striking zeal. Meanwhile, violent attacks on pregnancy resource centers were virtually ignored, even following a wave of hostility toward them in the wake of the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Supreme Court decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade.
One day before the report’s release, Trump DOJ officials fired at least four prosecutors linked to weaponized enforcement of the FACE Act. Among those removed was longtime Civil Rights Division lawyer and National Task Force director Sanjay Patel. Other reported dismissals included Sunita Doddamani and Frances Carlson. According to CBS News and statements from the department, the firings were aimed at personnel “responsible for weaponizing the FACE Act” who still remained at DOJ.
Compiled by DOJ’s Weaponization Working Group after reviewing roughly 700,000 internal records, the report paints a picture of one-sided enforcement of a law that ostensibly was written to protect both abortion facilities and pro-life pregnancy centers. Biden-era prosecutors allegedly worked closely with pro-abortion groups, monitored pro-life activists’ speech and travel before charges were filed, and in many cases crossed basic moral and ethical lines.
The report also alleges that prosecutors withheld material relevant to defenses, attempted to screen jurors based on religion, and authorized showy arrests for nonviolent defendants who could have surrendered voluntarily. The transparent purpose of these efforts was to strike fear in pro-life activists and dissuade them from publicly advocating for the unborn.
Many Americans undoubtedly remember the infamous 2022 raid on the home of Mark Houck, a pro-life activist in Pennsylvania. Houck had been praying outside an abortion clinic when a pro-abortion activist began shouting and hurling expletives at Houck’s young son. When the activist aggressively moved toward Houck’s son, Houck intervened and shoved the activist to the ground.
The incident should have ended there – with a father defending his son from a deranged leftist. Instead, the Biden FBI ordered a dawn raid on Houck’s home, terrorizing Houck’s wife and children, pointing guns in their faces, and hauling off the father of seven in handcuffs. Houck faced up to 11 years in prison but was ultimately acquitted on all counts by a jury in 2023.
Houck’s story captured the attention of the nation, but DOJ’s report proves that it was hardly unique. Other pro-life activists faced the same astonishingly hostile treatment.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche stated in strong terms that such weaponized prosecutions were wrong and must never be repeated. “This Department will not tolerate a two-tiered system of justice,” he said. “No Department should conduct selective prosecution based on beliefs.” Blanche added that the weaponization that occurred under the Biden administration “will not happen again.”
According to the report and supporting exhibits, federal prosecutors worked closely with groups such as the National Abortion Federation, Planned Parenthood, and the Feminist Majority Foundation. DOJ says those organizations provided information on pro-life activists, including personal details, travel information, and online activity that was used to support investigations and enforcement decisions.
In one example highlighted in materials released alongside the report, Sanjay Patel contacted the National Abortion Federation about an evangelical activist’s family travel plans before charges were filed. Records additionally show Patel offering to assist the group with a grant application while handling related matters.
The report also describes conduct that goes well beyond a mere dispute over enforcement priorities. The picture that emerges is prosecutors treating pro-life defendants not as citizens entitled to equal protection under the law, but as ideological targets.
Internal communications described in the report include complaints about a “very Catholic” magistrate judge and other indications of open hostility toward religious Americans – specifically Christians. Assistant Attorney General Daniel Burrows called the conduct “shameful,” saying lawyers who should have known better allowed the department to become “the enforcement arm of pro-abortion special interests.”
According to DOJ, Biden-era prosecutors requested an average sentence of 26.8 months for pro-life defendants, compared with 12.3 months for pro-abortion defendants who had allegedly violated the FACE Act. That disparity alone strongly supports the allegation that the law was enforced with intentional malice toward pro-lifers while violent pro-abortion defendants got treated with kid gloves.
As the report notes, the FACE Act was enacted in 1994 as a neutral public-order statute, not as a one-way instrument to punish one side of the abortion debate while shielding the other.
The report further reveals how the Biden DOJ downplayed or ignored attacks on pregnancy resource centers even as it devoted significant attention to abortion clinic cases. While Biden officials claimed they were enforcing the law without bias, in reality they were sorting cases according to ideology in order to target enforcement against those they disagreed with. Meanwhile, horrific attacks on pro-life pregnancy centers and churches went largely unpunished.
The Trump administration began reversing that approach almost immediately. Just days after taking office in January 2025, President Trump granted full pardons to 23 pro-lifers convicted under the FACE Act. Since then, the department has dropped several related civil actions against pro-life defendants and issued new guidance directing that future cases under the law move forward only in extraordinary circumstances or where significant aggravating factors are present.
The implications stretch beyond abortion politics. Conservative Americans have long alleged that liberals weaponize government power against their political opponents in a way that Republicans do not. This most recent round of revelations is perhaps the strongest vindication yet of that point of view – and a reminder of why protecting Americans from this two-tiered system of justice must remain a top priority for the GOP.
Sarah Katherine Sisk is a proud Hillsdale College alumna and a master’s student in economics at George Mason University. You can follow her on X @SKSisk76.
The FACE act supposedly protects access to houses of worship and reproductive health facilities (an odd combination in and of itself)
Paulette Harlow, a 76 year old grandmother gets a hard sentence and sent to prison for sitting & praying in a hallway in an abortion clinic supposedly impeding access.
However, Don Lemon enters a church with his rioters in protest of ICE, disrupts a church service, gets arrested, and released without bond, plays the “race card” and, as of yet, not sentenced or held accountable.
Two tiered justice system, aka double standard?
You betcha.
The head of the Biden crime family and his handlers know no shame.
When will Bumblehead be put in prison? He and his puppeteers should all be held responsible for all the evil they did to real American citizens!
It’s starting to happen everyday, another report/story of the Socialists/Communists weaponizing the “Deep State” against the freedoms of We The People.
Where are the arrest warrants for these DOJ lawyers who prosecuted and persecuted pro lifers. Why is not one being arrested. Or people in the White House under Biden who were ordering all this to take place. I am sick and tired of the democrats systematically trying to silence those on the right. The democrats scream and defile authority in this country. Against pro lifers, against Law enforcement, against anti vaxers, school board parents who want their children to get an education not to be carved up in the name of trans, they are anti religion and raid churches, they are weakening the military by allowing trans and drag queens to serve openly. They are pro fraud in elections because they want to keep the minorities be dependent on the govt. they are their voters after all. Only the minority is smart enough to see through that smoke screen. All the screaming and protests and dressing up has the opposite effect. Have your protest days it shows the rest of us how demented you all are. You are demonstrating against freedom, against law and order, but for a dictatorial government with stupid people at the helm.
We find every day proof of their schemes and plots they were up to to get control in their zeal to overthrow this govt. and still no one has been charged with a crime. So they were fired. What about the higher ups in the swamp. Like Adam Schiff and Pelosi and Schumer and AOC although I don’t rank her on the same level as Ms P. But a conniver like Oman and Tailib. They are undermining this country and getting rich at the same time. Trump was indicted on made up charges with a DOJ following orders from Obama and the usual suspect already mentioned in this article. Schumer is the accuser and the DOJ under Biden the prosecutor. President Trump is too nice to let them all get away with these crimes. Comey is getting away with his crimes, Hillary got a free pass from him. When are we going to see arrests and have these people pay for what they did to this country and its people. Until then this will continue.
Well, that doesn’t surprise me. I’m glad it’s known. The sad part is even though these things are brought to light, no consequences ever seemed to result. I hope the DOJ can pursue litigation and those responsible, probably not Biden, would get there just due.
Biden’s government weaponized everything against conservatives. Everything they had they threw at them. Sad part is they will never go to court for it Democrats and break whatever laws they want to, and get away with it. Court system is corrupt and the media backs anything the democrats do. The judgment day is coming, and they don’t even believe in God. Wait till they find out he is real, and they’re not on the saved list
When in the last 50 years have the Ds not weaponized any law they can find against Rs and Christians?
The way to be sure that this abuse never happens again, is to find the “one” who ordered theses abuses, and take all that they have, pensions, salary, and all holdings acquired during this period of lawlessness. Jail, at our expense, is too good for these, and further go straight to the top, not to the ones just obeying orders.
Also, to the ones who would breach a house of worship, when can we hear of punishment? Again, jail is too good for them, take their money.
We are living in a communist Progressive Leftist BIZZARRO WORLD, where everything is upside down and topsy turvy. Wrong is now right, corruption and fraud is an accepted practice, criminals are released back into the public and abnormal is now normal. Astoundingly, half of America is perfectly OK with it. Conservatives who love their country better stop with the complacency and turning a “blind eye” or we will lose our country.
Even after all the Biden Cabal filth keeps coming out, the blind, Trump-deranged, stupid far left will still vote to put them into our government offices. They have NO good candidate to put up for ANY office in our country because they are all like sheep following their leaders no matter how corrupt or evil they are. Even when they see and hear the TRUTH, they will still vote them in. It seems that they are either hypnotized by them or they are as evil and hate as much as these radical liberals do. This morning I heard that the new Communist governor in VA sees falling approval numbers. Well, what do you know??? This was predicted by many people during her campaign. She and her cronies are trying to put into place a new redistricting plan that will give the Republicans ONE seat in Congress. Pray for relief from these evil people!
DIMMs weaponize EVERYTHING! They thirst for power and will do ANYTHING to gain and keep it. The SWAT raids in the dark on people not yet even charged with a crime with weapons and in at least one case, helicopters and boats, is just one example! Meanwhile, illegal immigrants were welcomed, rewarded, and allowed to rape, pillage, and murder with little or NO consequences! They hate America and want to change us into a Communist state. But they had better watch out for their Islamic allies who’d prefer a Muslim theocracy!
Now if we could REMOVE ALL THE JUDGES WHO COMPLIED WITH THE DOJ TO BREAK ALL NORMALLCY OF FAIR LEGAL PRACTICE AND GIVE THEM A BIG TASTE OF THEIR OWN MEDICINE!!!!!!!! THEY LOOSE THEIR JOBS AND THEY HAVE TO SERVE THE SAME SENTENCES THAT THEY DISHED OUT AND IN THE SAME PLACES!!MERRICK GARLAND SHOULD GET THE SAME TREATMENT! What’s fair is fair. MAGA MAGA MAGA
These kinds of situations will occur again with a vengeance if/when the Dems get back in majority and the White House.
GOP, conservatives and lovers of our Creator must get out and vote for true America-first candidates, not ones that say so but aren’t. Please, or the country we love will be lost forever. Just look what’s happening in Virginia since it went all-Democrat last election!!
It should be widely known by now that if you vote for Democrats then you had better beware. Their agenda over the past couple of decades has been strongly against the American Taxpaying Citizens.
Biden and all of the Democratic Party and their allies are enemies to America!
The satanic Biden Administration and the despicable and purely evil Deep State weaponized EVERYTHING AND EVERYBODY. INCLUDING Trump, Christians, Conservatives, pro-lifers, Catholic nuns, small businesses, Jews, anti-vaxers, and anyone that did not support or cave into their agenda, policies, or ideology.
ALL should be serving LONG PRISON SENTENCES.
So…everyone is up in arms, wringing their hands and crying crocodile tears ???? . Big Deal! I’ll fall over dead if ANY of the political upper class ever goes to jail.
Pappy Biden so loves children and little girls and their mommies, even more than ice cream. Such kind and caring man who would not hurt a fly.
When are people going to realize Joe Biden has been dead since early 2020? And, when will they realize it was democrats who killed him??
If Pope Leo wants to do some good I suggest he excommunicate the “devout catholic Joe Biden.Hunter Biden and the former 1st “lady”.
With all the money these so-called American politicians…..Bidens, Obama, Clintons, along with members of the government who have stolen from the American people should be enough for them to be arrested, tried on public tv daily and given not only jail time but pay-back from stolen millions in off=shore and foreign banks!!!! If the stupid voters cannot see what they have created by voting for their elected idiot, self-adoring democrats who will stop at nothing in the destruction of America; here is another thought. Just like repeat offenders with driver’s licenses have them revoked for drunk driving, maybe stupid democrats should have their voting privileges revoked for a period of 4 years. They come to the voting place totally uninformed of who is voting for what and are asking each other online “who are you voting for”, or “how are you voting for this amendment”. They are sucking up to lies spread mainly be media but from bold-faced lying democrats. To me it is mindless, brainless stupidity and that is why we are trying to keep this country from drowning right now! Put these “above the law” politicians in jail and start chasing down their money to repay the coffers they stole it from. Put an end to Presidential comedy of building monuments to their own greatness with taxpayers’ money after their time in office is finished. People are dying, children are being abducted for sex trafficking, young and old are suffering at the hands of immoral laws that were passed. MAYBE JAIL TIME FOR POLITICIANS WHO ARE NOT ABOVE THE LAW HAS FINALLY COME TO BE NECESSARY!!!!
Ya know, there were probably five people in the USA that didn’t know that.
I am tired of reading about pearl clutchers complaining about being so disapproving about something they themselves are doing because it affects their actions and makes them upset about it
Man, oh man. I cannot keep up with all the BS going on in this country…..
Why aren’t people going to prison over this?
I’m so tired of the “look what we found” and the “they violated the law” yet here we are over a year into this administration and NOTHING has been done. NOTHING!!! I would think AMAC would get tired of reporting it only to see absolutely NOTHING happen. No arrests, no dismissals, no centure, no reprimand, nothing, zilch, zip, nada, nothing. Half the Republicans are spineless swamp creatures, the other half are petrified to even speak. I’m so disgusted.
No one should be surprised at this. Even on Newsmax, the hate and vitriol being hurled at the Pope is out of control. He has spoken out about war and violence, as one would expect. Even the President has publicly shamed him, which has damaged Trump’s reputation with me. Catholics stand for pro-life, anti-Communist, anti-woke conservative ideals. One would think that conservatives would work to include the largest single religious denomination in America rather than send hatred and insults…