The Justice Department on Tuesday released a report that accused the Biden administration of using the FACE Act to target anti-abortion activists who were prosecuted for blocking patients' access to reproductive health clinics.
The report is the first of several expected to be issued by the Weaponization Working Group, created last year, that is meant to examine a variety of topics from the Jan. 6 prosecutions, to the handling of investigations into President Trump during his time out of office.
Congress passed the FACE Act in 1994 to address rising concerns about threats and intimidation that women were facing at reproductive health clinics. Nonviolent and first-time offenses of the law are misdemeanors, while repeat offenses or violations that result in bodily injury or death can be treated as felonies.
The nearly 900-page report, which includes internal Justice Department records, claims that the Justice Department under former Attorney General Merrick Garland "violated the rights of Americans" by only applying the law to support those in support of abortion rights, not those who worked at anti-abortion rights facilities.
Ahead of its release, the Justice Department on Monday fired four federal prosecutors involved in Biden-era FACE Act cases, in what many current and former career department officials viewed as an act of political retribution for working on criminal matters opposed by the Trump administration, CBS News previously reported.
The report accuses the Justice Department and FBI under former President Joe Biden of collaborating with pro-abortion rights groups to get real-time information on anti-abortion rights groups' protest activity, accuses "Biden DOJ prosecutors" of knowingly withholding evidence and screening out jurors based on religion, and claims employees assisted pro-abortion rights groups with getting grant money from the department.
It also suggests that Garland's National Task Force on Violence Against Reproductive Health Care Providers was overly chummy with abortion rights groups like the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and accused the head of the task force, Sanjay Patel, of monitoring the activities of "pro-life activists for years before charging them."
Report release preceded by firings
Patel was among the four prosecutors fired on Tuesday, a government official confirmed, in what marks the latest purge of Justice Department employees who were involved in criminal or civil cases opposed by the Trump administration or Mr. Trump's allies.
Patel was previously placed on administrative leave in March, as a draft of the FACE Act report was being circulated internally.
He declined to comment on his removal from the department.
The report also alleges that prosecutors typically sought harsher sentences for anti-abortion activists, noting they requested "an average sentence of 26.8 months for pro-life defendants, compared to 12.3 months for pro-choice defendants."
In a statement, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said: "No Department should conduct selective prosecution based on beliefs. The weaponization that happened under the Biden Administration will not happen again, as we restore integrity to our prosecutorial system."
Although the department fired several prosecutors ahead of the report's release, the report said it does not contain any findings concerning internal misconduct investigations into any employees involved in the "weaponization of the FACE Act."
"Where appropriate, DOJ may refer current or former employees for criminal prosecution," the report says. "Likewise, DOJ may refer current or former employees to the relevant bar association or highest judicial authority of the jurisdictions in which they are licensed to address compliance with applicable Rules of Professional Conduct. Here, appropriate internal referrals have been made."
Stacey Young, a former Civil Rights Division attorney who founded and leads the nonprofit Justice Connection, denounced the firings in a statement on Monday.
"Congress passed the FACE Act with bipartisan support more than 30 years ago, and courts have consistently upheld the constitutionality of its provisions that ensure safe access to reproductive health services," she said. "Firing DOJ attorneys for zealously enforcing the law is unconscionable — it politicizes the department's enforcement actions and punishes dedicated civil servants for doing their jobs."
Long-standing complaints
The Trump administration has long alleged, with scant evidence, that the Biden-era Civil Rights Division used the FACE Act to intentionally target conservative Christians who are morally opposed to abortion.
Although the Justice Department did also pursue criminal charges against abortion rights activists who were accused of trying to scare volunteers and workers at a crisis pregnancy clinic that counseled on alternatives to abortion, the report says the total number of such cases was minimal compared to those targeting conservative anti-abortion Christians.
Mr. Trump early into his second term pardoned many of the FACE Act defendants convicted during the Biden administration. The Justice Department also dismissed several other FACE Act cases and ordered prosecutors to put the brakes on future FACE Act investigations.
At the same time, however, the current Justice Department has allowed the remaining FACE Act cases involving abortion rights activists to proceed without interference, with one Florida-based defendant receiving a 120-day prison term in March 2025.
On former Attorney General Pam Bondi's first day on the job, she ordered the Justice Department to establish a "weaponization working group" that would be tasked with, among other things, reviewing the prior use of the FACE Act.
Tuesday's report marks the first time the Justice Department has made public any work product from that group.
Former Civil Rights Division attorneys on Tuesday accused the Justice Department of cherry-picking from various emails and other internal records in order to reach certain conclusions, and they said the report appears to celebrate the perpetrators of the crimes, while ignoring female victims.
"This administration would have people believe that career civil servants prosecuted people simply for engaging in religious prayer and expressing anti-abortion beliefs. The enforcement record proves otherwise," said Regan Rush, Director of Red Line for Civil Rights at Democracy Forward and a former Civil Rights Division attorney. "This baseless report minimizes serious — and often violent — criminal conduct, and ultimately places women seeking access to medical care, providers, and communities at greater risk."
Laura-Kate Bernstein, a former federal prosecutor in the Civil Rights Division criminal section who handled FACE Act cases, highlighted the story of a victim in one case who tragically miscarried after trying to get pregnant for years. When she tried to go to a clinic to have her miscarriage medically managed, protestors blocked her path "while she sobbed and bled in the back of her car," Bernstein said. That account, she said, was not discussed in the report.
"This report cannot be squared with the facts on the ground," she told CBS News, adding that DOJ is ignoring female victims of crime.
"The felony prosecutions involved defendants that physically blockaded reproductive health clinics," she said, noting that people who merely stood by peacefully with signs were not charged in these cases. "The people who faced consequences were those who violated the law by using their bodies, locks, chains and other tools to physically blockage clinics."
Use of the FACE Act in other Justice Department cases
Even as the Justice Department has pulled back on enforcing the FACE Act against anti-abortion activists, it has also sought to use the law in new and untested ways.
Earlier this year, the Justice Department charged journalist Don Lemon and dozens of others with violating a provision of the law in connection with an anti-ICE protest inside a church in Twin Cities, Minnesota, which prohibits people from intimidating or interfering with people exercising their constitutional freedom to practice religion.
That provision has never been charged before — until now in the Lemon case — due to historical constitutional concerns by Civil Rights Division attorneys.
The main problem, lawyers previously told CBS News, is that the FACE Act fundamentally misstates the rights people have under the First Amendment. While the First Amendment protects people's religious freedom from government interference, it does not protect people's religious freedom from interference by private individuals, like the protesters and journalists charged in the indictment.
The law has only been used to prosecute people who obstruct reproductive health clinics because they are considered interstate commerce businesses. Churches, by contrast, are generally not in that category.
Earlier draft excerpts of the FACE Act report previously reviewed by CBS News show that the Justice Department's civil rights appellate lawyers penned a memo in 2018 which warned prosecutors not to charge the house of worship provision because it was unconstitutional and lacks a jurisdictional hook.
Such an internal memo could potentially harm the ongoing FACE Act prosecution in Minnesota. The final version of the report released on Tuesday does not appear to make reference to the memo.
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