Garland Says He Will ‘Look Into’ Requests For Data On ‘Weaponized’ FACE Act

During a congressional hearing on Tuesday, Attorney General Merrick Garland told lawmakers he would “look into” their concerns about the Biden administration’s weaponization of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act to target peaceful pro-life activists.

Speaking with Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA) during the House’s Department of Justice (DOJ) budget request hearing, Garland said that he would give Congress data on the department’s FACE Act prosecutions — but only if the information exists.

Republican lawmakers have accused the Biden administration of weaponizing the Clinton-era law — which criminalizes the threat or use of force to prevent someone from obtaining or providing “reproductive health care services” — specifically to target pro-life activists, while ignoring the myriad of attacks on pro-life pregnancy resource centers and pro-life churches over the past several years.

“My colleague, Congressman Chip Roy, has twice requested a copy of the Freedom of Access to Entrance of Clinics Act prosecution data,” Clyde told Garland. “He first asked for it in October 2022 and then again two months ago on February 16. He has yet to receive this data. My question to you is when will this data be provided by the Department of Justice?”

The attorney general responded by saying that he would be “very happy to look into” the matter but claimed that he had no knowledge of the requests made by Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX). Garland then stated that the DOJ would hand over the data if it existed — sparking concerns that the pro-abortion activists in President Joe Biden’s administration had either erased the data or never maintained it in the first place.

Clyde shared a clip of his exchange with Garland in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, writing: “The DOJ has repeatedly stonewalled my friend @RepChipRoy’s requests for FACE Act data. Joe Biden’s DOJ is desperate to hide the truth about its weaponization of this law against pro-life Americans. Today, I pressed AG Garland to commit to finally providing this information.”

The recent demand for the Biden administration to hand over FACE Act data came in the aftermath of six pro-life activists being convicted under the law for peacefully protesting at a Tennessee abortion mill in March 2021. These peaceful protesters will be sentenced in July and are potentially facing hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and nearly 11 years in prison, as the administration has accused them of conspiring against the rights outlined in the FACE Act.

This case was so outrageous that demands to repeal the FACE Act have been increasing, especially as the Biden administration has refused to use the same law to prosecute actual crimes — including the cases of pro-abortion terrorists firebombing and vandalizing pregnancy resource centers and churches.

In fact, one violent pro-abortion terrorist was recently sentenced to just seven and a half years in prison for throwing two Molotov cocktails through the windows of a Wisconsin Family Action building in Madison — objectively a more serious crime than praying outside of an abortion clinic, yet he got less time than the six pro-life activists are facing.

Roy and Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) have both repeatedly pushed to repeal the FACE Act, pointing out that it is supposed to also protect churches and pro-life pregnancy centers, but thus far the weaponized DOJ has refused to use the law in those cases.

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