Republican lawmakers on a House Judiciary Subcommittee held a hearing on Tuesday morning to discuss the Biden administration’s alleged selective enforcement of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act against pro-life activists.
GOP lawmakers brought forward Catholic pro-life activist and father of seven Mark Houck as a witness during the “Revisiting the Implication of the FACE Act” hearing. Last year, the Department of Justice (DOJ) sent a team of Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents to Houck’s home, allegedly arresting him at gunpoint in front of his wife and children. The DOJ accused Houck of violating the FACE Act in a shoving incident that local law enforcement had declined to pursue.
The FACE Act outlaws “violent, threatening, damaging, and obstructive conduct intended to injure, intimidate, or interfere with the right to seek, obtain, or provide reproductive health services.” Houck was charged with two counts of violating the FACE Act and faced 11 years in federal prison; however, a jury ultimately found him not guilty in January.
“I was facing 11 years in prison, and I had every prospect in my heart that I would be in federal prison away from my seven children,” Houck said during the hearing. “Thankfully, we were acquitted, and I’m blessed to be able to share this story today.”
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) asked Houck about his experience in relation to a now-retracted document produced by the FBI connecting “traditionalist” Catholics and domestic violent extremism:
You’re a pro-life, pro-family Catholic, for goodness sake. You have seven kids. You’re not allowed to have seven kids today…You were the example. That is how pervasive this political attitude is at the highest levels of our agencies.
And in this case, it was the FBI — so much so they put together a memo and said we want to put informants and snitches inside the Catholic Church, inside the parish, to go rat out people like Mark Houck and his family. Do you think that’s what was going on here?
“I would agree with you 100 percent that my family was targeted, that I’ve been on a watchlist,” Houck replied, clarifying that he is a Novus Ordo Catholic and does not attend Latin Mass.
“You may not go to Latin Mass, but they thought you were radical,” Jordan added.
Houck then alleged to the committee that his children “were down-range of many guns, and they screamed through the whole process” during his arrest.
“And the committee should know that they were traumatized, and I proceeded to be shackled in front of them and chained to a table for six hours in the federal building,” he alleged.
The committee used the hearing to emphasize how the DOJ has used the FACE Act to allegedly go after pro-life activists more than pro-abortion activists, even as the FBI admitted in November of 2022 that approximately 70 percent of abortion-related threats of violence in the United States since the Dobbs decision have been against pro-life groups.
As of May 17, there have been at least 87 attacks on pregnancy resource centers and pro-life groups and 157 attacks on Catholic churches since the leak of the Dobbs decision in May of 2022, according to CatholicVote trackers.
Even so, lawmakers could only account for the indictment of four abortion activists related to an attack on Florida pregnancy centers. In stark contrast, the DOJ Civil Rights Division charged 26 pro-life individuals with FACE Act violations in 2022 alone, including Houck.
“What you see from the Department of Justice is selective enforcement: going after Mark Houck, not going after abuses that are levied again crisis pregnancy centers, not going after folks who are trying to harass judges and so forth,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) said during a press conference following the hearing.
When asked by a reporter if Republicans would seek to repeal the FACE Act, Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) said lawmakers are considering various options moving forward following the revelations at the hearing.
“[We will] determine as the House Judiciary Committee whether we need some reforms to the act or whether we should amend it in some way to make sure this is used appropriately by the DOJ,” Johnson said.
Flashback — Scholar Says Joe Biden’s FBI Arrest of Pro-Life Activist Mark Houck “NOT on My Bingo Card”