A new DOJ report alleges Biden officials worked with Planned Parenthood and other abortion groups to target peaceful pro-life activists under the FACE Act, while attacks on churches and pregnancy centers drew far less federal action.
A new report released by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) shows that officials under President Joe Biden worked with pro-abortion non-governmental organizations (NGOs), including Planned Parenthood, to monitor, investigate, and target pro-life protesters, effectively acting as the organizations’ strongman against pro-life opponents rather than as a neutral law enforcement agency.
Released on Tuesday by the DOJ’s Weaponization Working Group, the report includes over 800 pages of exhibits, including troves of emails between DOJ officials and staff at pro-abortion NGOs, among them the National Abortion Federation (NAF), the Feminist Majority Foundation (FMF), and Planned Parenthood.
“This Department will not tolerate a two-tiered system of justice,” said Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche regarding the report’s findings. “No Department should conduct selective prosecution based on beliefs.”
Taking Direction from Pro-Abortion Forces
Between 2022 and 2024, dozens of pro-lifers were targeted, investigated, arrested, and tried by the Biden administration. Not only were they charged with Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act violations but many were also slapped with engaging in a felony known as “conspiracy against rights,” an 1870s law that was originally passed to combat KKK violence. Many were sent to prison for years, even as the FBI and DOJ largely looked away from arson, firebombing, and vandalism attacks by Jane’s Revenge and other pro-abortion groups on more than 300 churches and nearly 100 pro-life pregnancy centers.
The report showed that all of this activity extended from a cozy relationship between DOJ officials and pro-abortion leaders. An investigation of more than 700,000 internal documents revealed that DOJ officials, primarily those within its Civil Rights Division and the National Task Force on Violence Against Reproductive Health Care Providers, were in frequent contact with pro-abortion NGOs and at their request pursued FACE Act charges against the pro-life protesters.
In one email, for example, Sanjay Patel, who served as director of the task force and trial attorney for the Civil Rights Division, called NAF Security Director Michelle Davidson “a wonderful contact for me as it relates to FACE Act investigations. She has been an MVP bringing incidents to my attention, often in real-time, which usually result in an investigation/prosecution.”
NGO employees went so far as to send dossiers on pro-life activists detailing their families and home life, as well as tracking information on their travels. The DOJ tracked pro-life activists for months and even years before they were arrested for their allegedly illegal protests.
Other emails from DOJ officials show that following the passage of the Texas Heartbeat Act in 2021, which banned most abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected, and the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson, which overturned Roe v. Wade, the DOJ intentionally increased its targeting of pro-life activists under the FACE Act.
Unequal Treatment Under the Law
Despite its official name, the FACE Act doesn’t just apply to abortion clinics; it equally protects crisis pregnancy centers and churches from attacks or interference.
DOJ employees had regular contact with pro-abortion NGOs early on in the Biden administration, but it wasn’t until pro-life organizations initiated contact with the DOJ regarding the mass violence and threats against pro-life centers and churches in the summer of 2022 that the DOJ quickly attempted to piece together a meeting with pro-life groups. Some DOJ employees resisted giving the same information on the FACE Act to pro-life groups that had been given to pro-abortion NGOs.
Even after initial contact was made between pro-life groups and the DOJ, there was limited contact even as the DOJ maintained a constant dialogue with pro-abortion NGOs, including keeping them apprised of details about the trials of peaceful protesters who had been arrested at the NGOs’ demand.
And the differential treatment didn’t stop there. The Biden DOJ charged more than 45 pro-life defendants in 20 cases with violations of the FACE Act, even though they were peaceful protests. Meanwhile the DOJ charged only five people in three cases of FACE Act violations for threats and vandalism of pro-life pregnancy centers. And despite hundreds of attacks on churches, not one person was charged with a violation of the FACE Act for threats, vandalism, or attacks on churches or for intruding on worship services.
The DOJ’s preference for pro-abortion groups wasn’t just seen in the number of charges but also in the severity of charges sought by prosecutors.
The DOJ sought an average of 26.8 months in prison for peaceful protesters who staged sit-in protests at abortion clinics, resulting in judges handing down an average sentence of 14.7 months. By contrast, the DOJ pursued an average sentence of 12.3 months in prison for pro-abortion activists, resulting in an average sentence of just 3 months.
The heavy-handed nature of the arrests also showed unequal treatment under the law. One of the more infamous examples of this was the case of Mark Houck, a pro-life activist who was arrested by the FBI and charged with a single FACE Act violation.
In October 2021, Houck was speaking outside a Planned Parenthood facility when Planned Parenthood escort Bruce Love got in the face of Houck’s then-12-year-old son and shouted obscenities at the boy. Houck shoved Love, who fell and scraped his arm. Love pressed charges against Houck, but they were dropped by local authorities when he never showed up in court.
However, the recent report reveals that it was Planned Parenthood who turned the DOJ’s attention to Houck. Officials with the abortion giant contacted the FBI about arresting Houck, saying that the “objective of this would be to obtain an injunction” similar to a 2011 case.
The FBI forwarded the information to Patel, who assigned himself the case and told his deputy chiefs that it “looks like a good felony FACE matter.”
Patel then spent months persuading deputy chiefs to allow him to file charges. The deputies expressed hesitation at undertaking a prosecution as Houck’s conduct was not hindering access to the facility as required by the FACE Act; however, they noted that the U.S. Attorney’s Office (USAO) “really wants to proceed in this matter and the FBI is on board.”
The FBI, DOJ, and USAO all coordinated Houck’s arrest on September 23, 2022, despite the fact that Houck and his attorney had already stated that Houck would voluntarily come to court if summoned. Instead, in the early morning hours of September 23, 2022, a tactical team of 16 FBI agents in 7 vehicles arrived at Houck’s rural home, banged on the door, pointed guns at his wife and seven children, and took Houck away in handcuffs.
Public backlash to the extreme nature of the arrest caused Civil Rights Division leaders to ask Patel if the agency had signed off on such a show of force when Houck should have been given the offer to self-surrender. Patel blamed the FBI, saying that he thought the real reason for the arrest was “the FBI really likes to make arrests.”
On January 30, 2023, Houck was acquitted by a jury. He and his wife later filed civil lawsuits against the DOJ for wrongful arrest and prosecution; on the same day that the DOJ released its weaponization report, it announced that it had agreed to pay a $1 million settlement with Houck, admitting that the Biden DOJ had violated his First Amendment rights.
It was because of the public backlash regarding Houck and the lack of prosecutions of abortion activists who vandalized and threatened pro-life clinics that Patel went looking for token charges to bring against pro-abortion activists. The Civil Rights Division began pursuing “allegations of criminal conduct involving abortion alternative facilities” following congressional interest in the Houck arrest.
Patel wrote regarding a case in Florida, “[f]rom my perspective, I have a very strong interest in charging a Jane’s Revenge subject.”
When asked about his bandwidth for heading up another case, Patel wrote, “I definitely need to keep the new MDFL FACE matter bc it may be the first FACE case we bring with a pro-life victim.” Patel also wrote he was “glad to report that we are actively working … on three separate Jane’s incidents … in hopes of bringing charges soon.”
The indictment in the Florida case was unsealed on the same day that Houck’s trial began.
Misconduct and Discrimination
The report also showed that the DOJ engaged in discrimination against Christians and Catholics in the legal process. One case shown to be rife with prosecutorial misconduct was United States v. Zastrow, in which Calvin Zastrow and others, including 87-year-old concentration camp survivor Eva Edl, were prosecuted for FACE Act violations and “conspiracy against rights” following a peaceful protest in Sterling Heights, Michigan.
In March 2023, when the defendants were arraigned, Assistant U.S. Attorney Frances Carlson complained in an internal communication, “Unfortunately, we ended up with a very Catholic magistrate on duty this week and he was very particular about the bond conditions and not infringing on their first amendment rights. At the end, we ended up with overly lawyered bond conditions that would be difficult to enforce!”
In that case, the DOJ sought to ascertain whether potential jurors were Christians in hopes of stacking the jury in their favor. However, they struggled to determine how to probe the jurors’ religious beliefs without getting the case thrown out due to its pro-abortion bias. They asked the judge to let them use a jury questionnaire, which effectively provided the information they needed to determine which jurors were Christians. Prosecutors then flagged numerous Christian jurors for peremptory and for-cause strikes, removing them from the jury.
During the trial, the DOJ’s arguments frequently referred to the defendants’ beliefs and even called pro-life views and the terms Christians use as “culty”.
In a separate FACE Act case, United States v. Gallagher, Patel straight up lied to defense attorneys. In January 2023, the defense contacted the DOJ asking about “how many FACE Act criminal prosecutions there have been in the last ten years, including both reproductive right clinics, churches etc.” Considering the disparity in prosecutions based on pro-abortion or pro-life beliefs, the defense stated, “[i]t is no secret that we will make a selective prosecution type argument” and said that the information would be essential for the judge to evaluate the defense.
Patel had this information available in October 2022. Officials with the Civil Rights Division, at Patel’s request, had compiled a spreadsheet of all DOJ prosecutions under the FACE Act, and Patel added to it when he received monthly updates from the FBI on FACE Act arrests and charges delineated by pro-abortion and pro-life views. In fact, Patel had already shared the full list with the NAF when it previously requested the data.
The First Assistant United States Attorney wanted to share the information with the defense, but Patel decided “we should not provide her with anything” because “[p]roviding her with the requested information may open gates we will struggle to close later.”
A month after the defense counsel’s request, Patel sent a response stating that he did not keep the kind of records the defense requested but that they were likely publicly available.
Restoring Equal Justice
The Trump administration through its Weaponization Working Group and other efforts is attempting to end the political weaponization of the federal government and restore public trust. Shortly after taking office, President Trump pardoned 23 peaceful pro-life protesters who were prosecuted under the Biden DOJ, stating at the time that “They should not have been prosecuted.”
As a result of the report’s findings, the Trump DOJ has fired four prosecutors who were involved in bringing FACE Act and conspiracy against rights charges against pro-lifers, including Patel, who was placed on administrative leave last month and terminated on Monday.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche stated in an interview with Fox News, “We saw internal emails, internal correspondence, which is now part of the report, where Department of Justice prosecutors were working hand in hand with NGOs and nonprofits to target and go after pro-life individuals who were not breaking the law.”
He added, “I tell you what: There’s no emails in my inbox from NGOs telling me what to do.”
The Rot Runs Deep
It is right, praiseworthy even, that the DOJ has conducted this investigation and released the internal communication and findings to the public. Trump’s pardoning of the pro-life protesters, the prosecutors being fired, and the reclaiming of the DOJ from the gross abuse of the prior administration is all fantastic news.
But the bias and misconduct in the justice system runs deeper still and, as such, warrants additional investigations and accountability.
For example, take the case of Lauren Handy and the official effort to cover up five dead babies who were later named “The Five.” In the spring of 2022, a truck for an incinerator company pulled up outside abortionist Cesare Santangelo’s Washington Surgi-Clinic and began loading up boxes of fetal remains, which were labeled as medical waste. Handy and a fellow protester asked him if they could take one of the boxes so they could give the children a proper burial. The driver agreed.
When Handy opened the box, she not only found more than 100 smaller first- and second-term babies but also the fully formed bodies of 5 third-term babies who appeared to have been killed illegally via partial birth abortion. Handy called the local police to report that she had evidence of criminal activity, but the DOJ and FBI somehow got involved, and when law enforcement arrived to collect the babies’ bodies, they arrested Handy over a protest she’d participated in 18 months prior.
When Handy and several other protestors went on trial, U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly refused to allow any pictures of the babies or video of Santangelo admitting that he wouldn’t provide life support to a baby born alive after an abortion to be viewed nor would she let the defense argue that Handy and the defendants had acted in defense of unborn babies, dismissing it as “propaganda.”
The video was critical to understanding the protesters’ motivation for protesting at the Washington Surgi-Clinic. Kollar-Kotelly called their peaceful protest a “crime of violence” and incarcerated several of them immediately after the trial, rather than waiting for sentencing. She later imposed severe punishments, including sentencing Handy to a 57-months prison term and sending Paulette Harlow, a then-75-year-old wheelchair-bound grandmother in fragile health, to federal prison for two years, telling Harlow that if she really believed in the tenets of her Catholic faith, she would “make every effort to stay alive.”
The DOJ then ordered the remains of The Five to be destroyed without doing any autopsies or investigation into their deaths — until Congress got involved. In June 2025, the Trump DOJ stated that the deaths of The Five are finally being investigated.
Unfortunately, firing four prosecutors won’t end the gross miscarriage of justice that’s taken root in our legal system. It is up to the American people to demand prosecutors and judges who will follow the law, protect the innocent, and lock up violent criminals.
It is also up to Americans to create a nation that values life and the teachings of God’s Word — without which our nation will never have justice.
If you believe America needs one standard of justice, support the Standing for Freedom Center. Your gift helps us expose corruption, defend life, and advance truth with biblical clarity when too many institutions choose silence.
