(The Lion) — The Department of Justice under the Biden administration discriminated against pro-life Americans through unequal enforcement of the law and biased screening of individuals’ ideological beliefs, according to a new report released this week by the Department of Justice.
“The behavior unearthed in this report is shameful,” Assistant Attorney General Daniel Burrows of the Office of Legal Policy said in a statement. “Lawyers who should have known better withheld evidence, worked to keep committed religious people off juries, and generally allowed the Department of Justice to be used as the enforcement arm of pro-abortion special interests.”
The Biden DOJ “closely collaborated with pro-abortion groups” – tracking and doxxing pro-life citizens, refusing to prosecute cases involving abortion supporters, securing funding for abortion-related organizations and issuing significantly harsher sentences against pro-life individuals, according to the report.
Additionally, prosecutors under the Biden DOJ withheld crucial evidence from attorneys and screened jury candidates based on religion. One jury questionnaire, depicted in the more than 800-page report, asked candidates to select their sources of news. In addition to major media outlets, the options included Live Action News, The Lion, The Daily Signal and The Daily Wire, as Mary Margaret Olohan of The Daily Wire reported.
“This report describes a pattern of federal law enforcement being used to serve the abortion industry’s agenda rather than the equal administration of justice,” Live Action President Lila Rose said in a statement. “No administration should ever use the machinery of the justice system to intimidate citizens for their beliefs.”
Unequal protection under the law
In addition to this screening, the Biden DOJ unequally enforced the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, which protects access to religious institutions, including churches, as well as abortion centers and pregnancy resource centers, according to a press release from First Liberty Institute. The Biden DOJ sentenced pro-life defendants to an average of 26.8 months, compared with 12.3 months for pro-abortion defendants, according to the report.
Additionally, abortion-related organizations provided the Biden DOJ with personal information on various pro-life citizens, including driver’s license information, photos of their families and minor children, and pro-life events they had attended or planned to attend, Senior Counsel Jeremy Dys of First Liberty Institute told The Lion in an interview. With this information, the Biden DOJ pursued peaceful pro-life protesters while simultaneously declining to pursue individuals who committed vandalism and harassment against pregnancy resource centers.
One such incident involved vandals throwing light bulbs filled with red paint against the walls of Bethlehem House in Massachusetts, where the director, Pam Hibbard, also lived. Hibbard awoke to shattered glass, red stains on her home and spray-painted threats, Dys said. The Massachusetts attorney general not only declined to prosecute the vandals but also threatened Hibbard with sanctions and issued a consumer advisory against Bethlehem House.
In Lynchburg, Virginia, Blue Ridge Pregnancy Center was unable to file names or request indictments despite “active communication with the FBI,” likely because the Biden DOJ in Washington forbade the case from proceeding, Dys said.
“Even if the people wanted to file lawsuits and hold these vandals and agitators accountable, they were not able to do so because Main Justice said, ‘You can’t do that,’” Dys said, referring to the DOJ’s Washington headquarters.
During the Biden administration, First Liberty successfully litigated a case on behalf of Heartbeat of Miami alongside former Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody because the DOJ could not ignore vandalism and threats against the pregnancy resource center. This win was an anomaly among hundreds of similar cases during the administration’s four years.
“If you were favorable to the Department of Justice, you got the benefit of having the law on your side,” Dys said. “If they disagreed with your ideology, the Department of Justice decided that you were not worthy of having the law apply to you unless it became politically convenient for them to do.”
Many Biden DOJ staff members have either resigned or been asked to leave, but the Trump administration may still need to identify “career employees” who remained and possibly “slow-walked” some of these findings, Dys said. He called on House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune to examine “how deep the rot goes,” suggesting Congress may have also discriminated against pro-life views during the Biden era.
“The law is the law. It should apply to everybody, regardless of your ideology,” Dys said. “We are supposed to be a ‘nation of laws, not of men,’ as John Adams told us.”
He clarified that American citizens and nongovernment organizations are entitled to express their ideological beliefs and petition the government. But the government must uphold the law without bias and apply it equally, regardless of worldview, he said.
“[The law] ought to apply in the way that Lady Justice applies it, with the blindfold over her eyes and justice at her feet, rather than at the throats of those that she might have a political disagreement with,” Dys said. “But that’s the exact standard that the Department of Justice under President Biden simply ignored. They peeked out from underneath the blindfold, and they pointed the sword of justice at the throats of their enemies. And that is completely wrong.”
