New Attorney General Pam Bondi announced today after she was sworn in that she will launch a new investigation of lawfare against pro-life and conservative Americans.
Bondi initiated significant changes today within the Department of Justice (DOJ) to address concerns over the politicization of justice. One of her first actions was to establish a “Weaponization Working Group” tasked with reviewing instances where legal proceedings may have been influenced by political biases. This initiative reflects Bondi’s commitment to restoring impartiality within the DOJ and ensuring that justice is administered without political interference.
Bondi will investigate a number of abuses and cases of lawfare including the persecution Biden officials took against pro-life Americans. Bondi’s review aims to determine whether these prosecutions were conducted impartially or were driven by political motivations. This move underscores her dedication to scrutinizing high-profile cases that have raised questions about the DOJ’s objectivity
These initiatives mark a significant shift in the DOJ’s approach under Attorney General Bondi’s leadership. By establishing the Weaponization Working Group and realigning enforcement priorities, Bondi aims to address concerns about politicization within the department and ensure that justice is administered fairly and in accordance with the administration’s objectives. As these policies are implemented, their impact on the DOJ’s operations and public perception will become clearer.
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As LifeNews reported, Trump signed an executive order pardoning the 23 pro-life Americans Joe Biden imprisoned for protesting abortion.
“This is a great honor to sign this,” Trump said, condemning Biden’s lawfare, especially targeted at “elderly people.”
Trump granted pardons for 23 pro-life advocates who faced weaponized prosecutions brought against them by the Biden Department of Justice under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act.
Earlier this month, Thomas More Society attorneys submitted to the Trump administration formal requests for presidential pardons on behalf of 21 of those pro-life advocates who have been unjustly prosecuted, convicted, and in several cases, imprisoned, by the Biden DOJ. In their letter submitted to President Donald J. Trump, Thomas More Society attorneys urged “that these pro-life Americans are deserving of full and unconditional pardons.” The communicated pardon request package included 21 individual pardon requests, one for each pro-life advocate, outlining the specific facts of each case, their upstanding personal and moral character, and the reasons why President Trump should grant a presidential pardon..
“Today, freedom rings in our great nation. The heroic peaceful pro-lifers unjustly imprisoned by Biden’s Justice Department will now be freed and able to return home to their families, eat a family meal, and enjoy the freedom that should have never been taken from them in the first place,” reacted Steve Crampton, Thomas More Society Senior Counsel. “These heroic peaceful pro-lifers were treated shamefully by Biden’s DOJ, with many of them branded felons and losing many rights that we take for granted as American citizens. Today, their precious freedom is restored. What happened to them can never be erased, but today’s pardons are a huge step towards restoring justice. Thank you to President Trump and his team for righting these grievous wrongs of the previous administration.”
The pro-lifers for whom the Thomas More Society requested pardons for are: Joan Bell, Coleman Boyd, Joel Curry, Jonathan Darnel, Eva Edl, Chester Gallagher, William Goodman, Dennis Green, Lauren Handy, Paulette Harlow, John Hinshaw, Heather Idoni, Jean Marshall, Fr. Fidelis Moscinski, Justin Phillips, Paul Place, Paul Vaughn, Bevelyn Beatty Williams, Calvin Zastrow, Eva Zastrow, and James Zastrow.
“Today is a new day for the pardoned pro-life advocates who have suffered FBI raids, federal prosecutions, and severe punishment for peacefully and courageously witnessing for life. We thank President Trump for keeping his promise to these pro-life mothers, fathers, grandparents, pastors, and priests,” added Peter Breen, Thomas More Society Executive Vice President and Head of Litigation. “What happened to these peaceful pro-life individuals must never happen again. We urge Congress to act swiftly in repealing the FACE Act to make sure that the Justice Department can never again weaponize this law to target peaceful pro-lifers with severe charges.”
As Ben Johnson reported at The Washington Stand, Trump, who began his second term on Monday, had pledged to grant some form of clemency to pro-life prisoners of conscience.
“To reverse these cruel travesties of justice, tonight I’m announcing that the moment I win the election, 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,” he announced at the 2023 Pray Vote Stand Summit, organized by Family Research Council Action. He also said, under his watch, “never again will the federal government be used to target religious believers.”
Trump has since repeated that promise elsewhere. Last February, before the National Religious Broadcasters, Trump lamented the plight of “pro-life activists … convicted on outrageous charges” in Nashville, where the speech took place. In a speech to the Faith and Freedom Coalition last June, Trump highlighted the case of Paulette Harlow, a 76-year-old with severe medical issues whose judge mocked her faith.
“I will govern by a simple motto: Promises made, promises kept,” vowed Trump shortly after winning the 2024 presidential election.
In their letter, the legal organization outlines the unjust treatment and dubious legal theories that resulted in federal judges doling out multi-year sentences to its often-elderly clients over acting on their conscience.
The Biden-Harris administration has not prosecuted anyone under the FACE Act for the 436 church attacks that took place last year, even though pro-life pregnancy resource centers are 22 times more likely to be attacked than abortion facilities. “While Biden’s prosecutors almost entirely ignored the firebombing and vandalism of hundreds of pro-life churches and pregnancy centers, they viciously pursued pro-life Americans, obtaining convictions against them under the federal ‘FACE Act’ (18 U.S.C. § 248) and the Ku Klux Klan Act’s ‘Conspiracy Against Rights’ felony provisions (18 U.S.C. § 241). But these individuals participated in mere peaceable civil disobedience, in the heralded tradition of the American Civil Rights activists. Peaceable actions like these usually merit, at worst, a minor misdemeanor conviction,” it states. These prosecutions represent a significant escalation of lawfare and weaponization of government against Christians. “Neither the Clinton DOJ nor the Obama DOJ dared use this plainly inapplicable law against pro-life advocates.”
Such prosecutions were never supposed to take place, according to the bill’s authors. During debate over the 1994 act, the late Senator Ted Kennedy reassured voters that, “if an individual does violate this law for the first time, it is not a felony.”
The letter states the prosecutions also violate the Supreme Court’s ruling last June in Fischer v. U.S. (2024), which warned against the potential use of the law to “criminalize a broad swath of prosaic conduct, exposing activists and lobbyists alike to decades in prison.”
The FACE Act, signed into law by President Bill Clinton more than three decades ago, makes it a federal crime to block or otherwise harm a reproductive health care facility or church. However, the Thomas More Society argued, clients protesting outside a Washington, D.C., abortion facility objected to the potentially illegal murder of late-term or newborn babies after the remains of five infants were found in its garbage. “The trial judge recognized that, if those advocates acted on behalf of those innocent children left to die, their conduct would not violate the FACE Act. But then, that same trial judge refused to allow the jury to hear the significant evidence establishing the defense: that such illegality was occurring and that the advocates were motivated by their desire to oppose that illegality,” the letter states. (Emphasis in original.)
The 31-year-old FACE Act has become passé, as it attempts to enforce a non-right. The 2022 Dobbs decision ruled that the Roe v. Wade opinion erred in inventing a purported right to abortion in the U.S. Constitution. The pro-life ruling “eroded the principal stated purpose of Congress’ enactment of the FACE Act, namely, to protect the purported constitutional right to abortion access,” which Dobbs ruled “as non-existent.”
“We are hopeful that the second Trump administration will spell a new day for pro-life advocates who have faced FBI raids, federal prosecutions, and severe punishment for peacefully and courageously witnessing for life,” said Peter Breen, the Thomas More Society’s executive vice president and head of litigation, who is one of the letter’s signatories. “By acting on the requested presidential pardons, President Trump has a golden opportunity to not only stop the lawfare against peaceful pro-lifers, but to also undo some of the unprecedented damage of the Biden administration. Inside and outside the courtroom, Thomas More Society attorneys have seen up close the harm inflicted by the Biden DOJ’s weaponization of the FACE Act. Today, we call on President Trump to pardon these peaceful pro-lifers and put an end to this government overreach.”
Erin Hawley, senior counsel for the religious legal advocacy firm Alliance Defending Freedom, told the Washington Examiner that the FACE act “was completely weaponized by the Biden DOJ.”
“President Trump issued a sweeping pardon of the Jan. 6 defendants, and ADF will be requesting that he pardon the pro-life advocates who were selectively prosecuted under the FACE,” said Erin Hawley, who is married to the senator.
