Washington, DC - Thomas More Society welcomes today’s release of a report by the U.S. Department of Justice Weaponization Working Group, which confirms that the Biden Administration systematically weaponized the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act against peaceful pro-life Americans while closely coordinating with abortion industry groups to identify, surveil, and target them for prosecution. The explosive report, based on a review of more than 700,000 internal records, vindicates what Thomas More Society argued in courtrooms and in the media for years: that federal prosecutors selectively pursued pro-life advocates while giving the abortion lobby an open line to drive enforcement decisions.

Thomas More Society represented clients in nearly every major FACE Act prosecution examined in the report, including Mark Houck in United States v. Houck, Paul Vaughn in United States v. Gallagher, Chet Gallagher in United States v. Zastrow, and Lauren Handy in United States v. Handy—along with numerous other criminal and civil FACE Act cases across the country. Each of the criminal cases highlighted in the report resulted in presidential pardons or acquittals. During the same period, the Biden DOJ charged more than 45 pro-life defendants in over 20 cases—a quarter of all FACE Act prosecutions since the law’s enactment in 1994—while charging only five individuals for attacks on pregnancy resource centers and bringing zero cases to protect houses of worship.

“We are grateful to President Trump and the Justice Department for having the courage to expose what happened and to right these wrongs,” said Peter Breen, Executive Vice President and Head of Litigation at Thomas More Society, who represented Houck at trial. “Thomas More Society has stood with these pro-life heroes when the full weight of the federal government was brought to bear against them—defending them in the courtroom and advocating for their pardons.”

“We are hopeful that today’s findings will help restore the American people’s faith in a justice system that was badly abused,” added Breen. “Weaponizing federal law enforcement against people of faith must never happen again.”

Across the board, the report found, the Biden DOJ requested an average sentence of 26.8 months for pro-life defendants versus 12.3 months for pro-choice defendants.

The report is especially revealing in its treatment of the Houck prosecution, where Biden DOJ prosecutors singled out Thomas More Society attorneys for personal attacks. One week before Thomas More Society attorneys secured a unanimous not guilty verdict for Houck from a Philadelphia jury, the report and exhibits disclosed that Task Force Director Sanjay Patel referred to Thomas More Society in an internal email as “quite the racket”(Exhibit 138). Earlier, another prosecutor emailed that he expected Thomas More Society attorneys would be “particularly... Unpleasant” (Exhibit 137).

When Thomas More Society Senior Counsel Matt Heffron, corresponding on behalf of Houck, offered to accept a summons and bring Houck in voluntarily (Exhibit 139), DOJ refused—instead sending 20 armed FBI agents to the Houck family home at 7:03 a.m. to arrest a father in front of his wife and seven children. (Watch Mark Houck tell his story in this Thomas More Society video.)

“We witnessed firsthand this unprecedented weaponization in the courtroom. Prosecutors who mocked our clients’ faith, withheld evidence we were entitled to, and took their marching orders from abortion industry leaders,” said Steve Crampton, Senior Counsel at Thomas More Society, who defended Vaughn, Gallagher, and Handy in their trials. “Today’s report proves what we at Thomas More Society have alleged from the start—that these prosecutions were driven not by the rule of law, but by political bias and coordination with the abortion industry. This report pulls back the curtain on what we experienced in those courtrooms and exposes it for the country to see.”

The report also exposes the extent to which the Biden DOJ coordinated with the National Abortion Federation (NAF), Planned Parenthood, and the Feminist Majority Foundation to build cases against pro-life Americans:

Patel described NAF’s Security Director as an “MVP” who flagged protests for DOJ’s “attention, often in real-time, which usually result in an investigation/prosecution.”

NAF compiled a 137-page dossier on pro-life individuals—including photographs, addresses, drivers’ license numbers, photos of spouses and minor children, and travel plans, and shared it with DOJ and the FBI. The FBI itself flagged that this tracked “1st Amendment protected activity,” yet the Task Force continued regardless.

In every one of the six pardoned FACE Act cases, DOJ learned of the underlying conduct from abortion NGOs—not from purported victims or local law enforcement.

Patel served as a reference on NAF’s grant application, with no record of ethics approval, while NAF had active business before his office. NAF received $190,000 from that foundation.

The misconduct extended across multiple cases Thomas More Society defended. In the Gallagher matter, Patel falsely told defense counsel he did not “keep the kind of records” they requested for a selective prosecution defense—when he had the data on hand and had already shared it with NAF. In the Zastrow case, prosecutors sought to screen jurors based on their Christian faith, searched for “an indirect way to get some more info about religion,” and one prosecutor described pro-life Christians and their language as “culty.”