The SWAT team arrest of a pro-life activist from Pennsylvania, coupled with the FBI’s passive response to violence committed by abortion-rights activists, explains Catholic League President Bill Donohue’s request for an investigation.
September 26, 2022
Hon. Chuck Grassley
135 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
Dear Senator Grassley:
In your role as the Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary
Committee, I am asking you to convene an investigation, and/or a hearing, on
the FBI’s behavior regarding pro-life and abortion-rights activists. There
seems to be much interest in pursuing alleged wrongdoing by pro-life activists,
yet little interest in pursuing alleged wrongdoing by abortion-rights
activists. Bias of this kind is politically motivated and must stop.
To be specific, on September 23, Mark Houck, a pro-life
activist from Kintnersville, Pennsylvania was arrested by some two dozen SWAT
team agents—they came to his house with guns drawn—on grounds that he assaulted
an abortion-rights patient escort at a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in
Philadelphia on October 13, 2021. He is being charged with violating the
Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE).
Houck says he shoved a man who had been harassing his
12-year-old son in front of the clinic during one of his sidewalk counseling
sessions. The charges were reportedly dismissed by the District Court in
Philadelphia.
I am not in a position to judge the veracity of the account
offered by the FBI or Houck. But it surely seems that the FBI overreacted in
its handling of this matter. Houck had seven children at home as the SWAT team
pounded on his door, showing up fully armored, yelling at him to open it.
This kind of overreaction for a minor infraction of the law
is deeply troubling, and it becomes even more troubling when paired with the
underreaction by the Department of Justice when the pro-life side is targeted.
On June 17, 2022, I wrote to U.S. Attorney General Merrick
Garland asking him to “immediately deploy the full resources of the Department
of Justice to apprehend and prosecute domestic terrorists who have recently
attacked Catholic individuals, vandalized Catholic churches and torched
Catholic-operated crisis pregnancy centers.”
I provided Attorney General Garland with specifics. “We
have witnessed a rash of vandalism against Catholic churches, firebombings of
crisis pregnancy centers (many of which are run by Catholics), Masses being
interrupted, illegal protests outside the homes of Catholic Supreme Court
Justices, and an attempted murder of one of the Catholic Justices.” I
explicitly cited the work of Jane’s Revenge.
On June 29, we published a list of 16 instances of violence
committed by abortion-rights protesters. We now have a list of dozens of
Catholic entities, mostly churches, that have been vandalized or otherwise
desecrated. (See the attachments.)
Not only did I not receive a response from the attorney
general, there have been no news stories on SWAT teams crashing the homes of
abortion-rights terrorists. Yet there have been many instances of violence that
make “shoving” someone look like child’s play.
I implore you to get to the bottom of this duplicity.
Sincerely,
William A. Donohue, Ph.D.
President
cc: Members of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees
No comments:
Post a Comment