Rep. Chip Roy, R-TX, penned a letter to Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Christopher Wray asking him to address statistics that suggest the Biden-Harris Department of Justice (DOJ) is selectively prosecuting pro-life advocates.
In his letter, Roy cited CatholicVote’s violence tracker of attacks on pregnancy centers and pro-life groups.
Roy chairs the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government.
“I remain concerned with the [DOJ] and the [FBI] weaponization of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act against Americans who stand for life,” Roy wrote in his letter.
Roy pointed to Wray’s July 24 testimony before his subcommittee that the Congressman says “seems to contradict the DOJ’s own data that shows the FACE Act is being used almost exclusively against pro-life individuals.”
“Americans deserve an accurate accounting of the facts,” Roy stressed.
The lawmaker wrote that in May
DOJ responded to my repeated requests for FACE Act prosecution data and confirmed that it has brought a disproportionate number of cases against pro-life protestors. Since January 2021, the Civil Rights Division has charged 24 FACE Act cases against 55 defendants, with only two of these cases – consisting of five defendants – originating from attacks on pregnancy resource centers.
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He noted that the “data is particularly troubling in light of the fact that there have been at least 90 individual cases of attacks on pro-life organizations and pregnancy resource centers since” the May 2022 leak of the Supreme Court’s draft decision overturning Roe v. Wade.
According to CatholicVote’s tracker, there have been 92 such attacks since May 3, 2022.
Per CatholicVote, the “attacks appear to be organized under the umbrella of two domestic terror groups — Jane’s Revenge and Ruth Sent Us.”
Roy juxtaposed the data with Wray’s testimony before the subcommittee last month.
At the time, the FBI director had claimed that “since the Dobbs decision, actually more of [the FBI’s] abortion-related violent extremism investigations have focused on violence against pro-life facilities as opposed to the other way around.”
The congressman responded:
The fact that the Department’s own data shows that a mere 8 percent of FACE Act cases filed by the Biden-Harris Administration are against agitators at pregnancy resource centers would seem to belie your assertion.
In his letter, Roy asked for Wray to provide documents to support his “assertion that the FBI has undertaken more abortion-related violent extremism investigations focusing on violence against pro-life facilities as compared to abortion facilities since” the Supreme Court leak.
Last September, Roy introduced a bill in the House to repeal the FACE Act.
The congressman said at the time:
Free Americans should never live in fear of their government targeting them because of their beliefs. Yet, Biden’s Department of Justice has brazenly weaponized the FACE Act against normal, everyday Americans across the political spectrum, simply because they are pro-life.
LifeNews Note: Joshua Mercer writes for CatholicVote, where this column originally appeared.
