DOJ says Biden unfairly targeted anti-abortion activists : NPR

A pro-abortion rights protester, left, confronts an anti-abortion protester in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022.

Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/AP

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The Justice Department released a report Tuesday accusing the Biden administration of unfairly using a federal law intended to protect reproductive health clinics from violence to target Christians who oppose abortion.

THE the report is the first from the agency’s “Weapons Task Force,” a task force created under the current Trump administration to investigate perceived wrongdoing by the Biden administration. This comes as Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche faces pressure from the president to go after Trump’s perceived political enemies.

Former Attorney General Pam Bondi created the task force as one of her first acts on last year’s work; this report is the group’s only significant result so far.

Separately, the DOJ has made other efforts to investigate Trump opponents, such as New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey – but failed to obtain a case to stick.

The report says the Justice Department, under former President Joe Biden, used the FACE ACT, or Free Access to Clinic Entrances Act, to launch biased lawsuits and prosecutions against conservatives and Christians protesting abortion.

The FACE Act was signed into law more than 30 years ago and prohibits threats, acts of violence, obstruction, or damage to property intended to interfere with reproductive health care services, including abortion.

“This department will not tolerate a two-tiered justice system,” Blanche said in a statement announcing the report. “No department should conduct selective prosecutions based on belief. The militarization that occurred under the Biden administration will not happen again, as we restore the integrity of our prosecutorial system.”

Federal prosecutors brought harsher charges and imposed significantly harsher sentences on abortion rights advocates compared to “violent pro-abortion defendants,” the report said. The report also accuses federal prosecutors of “knowingly” withholding evidence from defense attorneys, among other allegations.

As part of this investigation, the DOJ says it has taken “personnel action” against federal prosecutors involved in civil lawsuits against anti-abortion activists. NPR has confirmed that at least four people have been fired for what the DOJ says is weaponizing the FACE Act.

The report’s findings have been disputed by several groups, including the nonprofit Democracy Forward, which has frequently sued the Trump administration over its policies.

Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, said the report was a waste of “countless hours and taxpayer dollars” and consisted of emails cherry-picked “to create a fictional and false narrative to distract from the administration’s failures to improve everyone’s lives.”

Stacey Young, executive director and founder of Justice Connection, an organization of former Justice Department staffers, also criticized the report and the firing of federal prosecutors.

“The cruelty and hypocrisy of the current DOJ leadership are on full display in this report. They insist that zealous advocacy by career staff to advance the President’s priorities, while simultaneously shaming and firing those who did just that in the previous administration,” Justice Connection’s Young said in a statement. She was referring to the Bondi memo that demanded the department’s prosecutors “zealously” defend and protect the interests of the United States, as set by the President.

“They warned career employees that if they do their job, they risk termination if future political leaders do not agree with the policy goals of previous leaders,” Young added.

From President Trump first week back at the officeThe department said enforcement of the FACE Act was the “prototypical example” of how Biden’s DOJ used the law and the agency as a weapon against conservatives.

Administration last year said it would no longer sanction violations of the FACE Act statute except in extraordinary circumstances, such as cases involving death or serious property damage. Trump also issued a full pardon to anti-abortion Christians who the Justice Department said were “unfairly targeted” by the Biden administration.