Rep. Chip Roy, Fellow Lawmakers Demand FBI Provide Data on FACE Act Enforcement

Pro-abortion activists chant while marching from City Hall to a Planned Parenthood clinic in Santa Monica, Calif., on July 16, 2022. Mario Tama/Getty Images

A group of 37 lawmakers led by Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) has publicly criticized the Federal Bureau of Investigations for the “continued politicization” in some of its activities and operations, and has called on the Bureau to clarify when and in what circumstances it is enforcing the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act.

In a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray, the lawmakers accuse the Bureau of abdicating its role to enforce the law in a neutral manner and charge it with becoming, in effect, a political tool of the Biden administration, particularly when it comes to detaining and prosecuting individuals involved in protests at abortion clinics in the aftermath of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

The alleged FBI overreach and double-standards comprise the latest chapter in long-running tensions between President Joe Biden’s administration and state and municipal officials whose legal and jurisdictional prerogatives have gone ignored, as in the ongoing crisis over illegal immigrants shipped from border states to unprepared “sanctuary” cities who support Biden’s open-border philosophy.

“The recent rise in high-profile FBI investigations into pro-life Americans raises well-founded concerns that the FBI has amassed too much power and has become a partisan cudgel wielded by the Biden administration at the behest of progressive activists against political opponents and dissenters,” the letter states.

Of particular concern to the lawmakers is an Oct. 5 incident after reports emerged of the indictment of 11 pro-life activists for alleged FACE Act violations committed during a demonstration outside an abortion clinic in Tennessee. In another incident cited in the letter, the FBI on Sept. 23 arrested Mark Houck, a pro-life activist, who had allegedly pushed a volunteer at a clinic while attempting to come to the defense of his son. Local authorities had dismissed the charges against Houck, yet the federal enforcement agents arrested him anyway on FACE Act grounds.

The letter cites yet another incident, first reported by The Daily Signal, in which FBI agents on Sept. 27 grilled pro-life demonstrators outside a Planned Parenthood branch in Minnesota, seeking to gain information about an encounter where a Planned Parenthood customer tried to cut up a pro-life sign and an activist physically intervened to stop her. Again, the FBI took action even though a local court had dismissed the charges against the pro-life activists.

And in yet another incident referenced in the lawmakers’ letter, authorities in the Eastern District of New York on Sept. 29 brought charges against Father Fidelis Moscinski for having placed a lock on the entrance to an abortion clinic. Here, too, federal law enforcement acted without regard for the fact that a local court had already handed down a sentence against the actor in question.

“Overzealous prosecutions under the FACE Act weaponize the power of federal law enforcement against American citizens in what should firmly be state and local matters. Further, these abuses of federal power against pro-life Americans based solely on their beliefs undermine the American people’s trust in the FBI,” the lawmakers argue.

Double Standards?

Compounding the lawmakers’ concerns, the zeal of federal officials to prosecute anti-abortion demonstrators and activists—even in cases where local officials have not deemed it appropriate to pursue charges—contrasts with the FBI’s failure to charge those involved in attacks on and vandalization of more than 72 Catholic churches and facilities offering counseling and resources for pregnant women, the letter continues.

These “heinous, violent, and organized crimes across state lines” are in violation of the FACE Act, yet the same federal enforcement agency so concerned with putative pro-life aggression and lawbreaking has shown no inclination to do anything about such offenses, the lawmakers charge.

“It is clear that congressional scrutiny of the FBI’s use of the FACE Act is needed to ensure the FBI is applying it as Congress intended and, if not, to determine whether the FBI can continue to be trusted with this authority,” they state.

To that end, the letter concludes with a list of questions, demanding information regarding: the number of investigations that the FBI has brought under the FACE Act in each year from 2019 to the present year; how many of those investigations have to do with abortion facilities, pregnancy centers, and churches, respectively; how many cases target subjects whose alleged offenses had previously been dealt with by state courts; on what grounds the Bureau launches a FACE Act investigation when state courts have already dismissed the charges; what resources the FBI is putting to use in its investigations; and whether the Department of Justice has issued new guidance about FACE Act investigations since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling.

The Epoch Times has reached out to the FBI for comment.