First Pro-Abortion Attacker Conviction, DOJ Silent

For Immediate Release: September 26, 2023

—

After over 300 attacks on pro-life people, the Erie County, New York, District Attorney’s office secured the first criminal conviction of an attacker who pled guilty to defacing the private property of the medical office of pro-life medical network CompassCare. The perpetrator was originally charged with criminal mischief, a class E felony, but pled guilty to disorderly conduct on September 15, agreeing to pay over $2500 in restitution. On the same day, the House Judiciary Committee requested the appearance of Assistant U.S. Attorney General Kristen Clarke—in charge of the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice—to answer for unequal enforcement of the law and aggressively indicting peaceful pro-lifers while ignoring organized pro-abortion fire-bombings on medical offices like CompassCare.

CEO of CompassCare, Rev. Jim Harden, three days prior to the March 13 vandalism, began to assert that the June 7, 2022 firebombing of CompassCare, and most of the other 300 attacks on peaceful pro-life groups by pro-abortion extremists, are FACE Act (Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances) violations emboldened by Antifa complicity in the Biden Administration’s Department of Justice.

Rev. Harden decried the leader of DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, Kristen Clarke, for deprioritizing investigations into attacks on the politically disfavored pro-lifers. Three days later, on March 15, CompassCare was attacked a second time. An arrest was made. The perpetrator pled guilty. The act fits the definition of a FACE violation. And the DOJ continues looking the other way despite Attorney General Merrick Garland’s insistence under oath two weeks earlier that the law was being applied equally.

The Judiciary Committee’s request read in part, “We are also deeply concerned about the Civil Rights Division’s double standard in enforcing the FACE Act in a manner that robustly protects pro-abortion activists and facilities while essentially ignoring attacks on pro-life advocates, facilities, and churches.”

Given the unequal enforcement of the FACE Act, weaponized against the 1^st Amendment free speech rights of pro-lifers as well as the refusal to prosecute pro-abortion extremists in violation of the 14^th Amendment rights of pro-lifers, Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) seeks the repeal of the Clinton era bill.

Rev. Harden believes the actions of pro-abortion officials regarding the attacks on pro-lifers constitute violations of the Third KKK Act of 1871—now enshrined in the U.S. Code 42, Sections 1983, 1985, and 1986, prohibiting any person acting under state authority from depriving a person or class of person equal protection of the law or any other rights. Rev. Harden states, “Based on section 1986, leaders within the DOJ, FBI, DHS, and others within the Biden administration should be held liable. Section 1986 states that any person who knows that a violation of or conspiracy to deprive rights is occurring, is in a position to prevent it, and fails to attempt to prevent or assist in its prevention, can be prosecuted.

Wherever one stands on abortion, attacks on the constitutional rights of pro-lifers constitute an attack on the Constitutional Rule of Law. It is time to move past impeachment to criminal prosecution of those violating their oaths of office.”