The Trump administration’s Justice Department released a report Tuesday that it says details the Biden administration’s uneven enforcement of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act to target anti-abortion groups.
The report claims that the Biden Department of Justice unlawfully favored abortion-rights groups and their security over anti-abortion groups in its communications, activities and prosecutions. The department collaborated with abortion-rights groups to “track pro-life activists’ First Amendment activity,” withheld evidence requested by defense attorneys, “tried to screen out jurors based on religion” and pursued harsher sentences for anti-abortion defendants than for abortion-rights defendants, according to the report.
The First Liberty Institute, a legal organization that focuses on defending religious liberty, called the report by the department’s Weaponization Working Group “explosive.”
“The Biden administration’s selective, politically-motivated enforcement of the FACE Act was an unconscionable abuse of power,” said Jeremy Dys, senior counsel for the institute, in a statement.
The FACE Act was enacted in 1994 under President Bill Clinton and created civil and criminal penalties for anyone who interferes with or intimidates people providing or seeking reproductive health services or attending places of worship. It also protects the property or reproductive health clinics or centers and places of worship. Anyone convicted of interference or intimidation in those settings may face fines, probation or imprisonment, depending on the severity of the offense.
The report cited an internal email that said the Biden DOJ charged “more than 45” anti-abortion defendants in “over 20” cases. In contrast, though there was a noticeable uptick in violence against pregnancy resource centers after the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, the report claims that the “Biden DOJ largely ignored attacks on pro-life pregnancy resource centers, only charging five people for vandalism and attacks” against anti-abortion pregnancy resource centers.
For 21 nonviolent anti-abortion defendants who were convicted of obstructing the entrances of reproductive health clinics, the average requested sentencing from the Biden DOJ was 26.8 months, or roughly 2 years and 3 months, according to the department’s report. These defendants and two others were later pardoned by President Donald Trump within the first few days of his second term.
For six abortion-rights activists who were convicted of vandalism for graffitiing pregnancy help centers, the department requested an average sentence of 12.3 months, or just over one year.
The report also describes how abortion-rights groups sent information on some anti-abortion activists to the Biden DOJ, which the department used to “monitor’ pro-life activists years before charging them,” and how assistant United States attorneys “looked for ways to screen possible jurors based on their conservative or religious views, while not inquiring about liberal counterviews.”
In response, besides the president’s pardons and in addition to other efforts, the Trump DOJ has dismissed three civil lawsuits against anti-abortion activists and issued guidance directing department prosecutors to only bring abortion-related civil actions under the FACE Act in “extraordinary circumstances or in cases presenting significant aggravating factors.”