Bosom buddies? Biden DOJ deputized abortion-rights groups to surveil, target pro-life activists

The Biden White House, Attorney General Merrick Garland and National School Boards Association worked together in 2021 to create a pretext for federal law enforcement to target protests by parents and community members at school board meetings, likening criticism of COVID-19 policies and race-based curricular decisions to "domestic terrorism."

The Justice Department's Weaponization Working Group, created by recently departed Attorney General Pam Bondi in response to disclosures about her predecessor's exploits against Democrat-disfavored causes, revealed even more close cooperation between the Biden DOJ and Democrat-aligned interest groups to punish their collective enemies in a sprawling report Tuesday.

The National Abortion Federation, which lobbies for the abortion industry and is well-funded by billionaires including population-control advocate Warren Buffett, played a pivotal role in DOJ's prosecutions of "peaceful" pro-life activists for actions around abortion clinics under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, the report said.

Not only was Civil Rights Division trial attorney Sanjay Patel, who led the Garland-reconstituted National Task Force on Violence Against Reproductive Health Care Providers, on "texting terms" with NAF's clinic security team, he gave the abortion lobbyists "internal department information […] seemingly unbeknownst" to supervisors, the report alleged.

Patel also communicated regularly with Planned Parenthood and the Feminist Majority Foundation, according to the report, which shows the three abortion-rights groups were repeatedly discussed together within DOJ as resources for FACE Act investigations against pro-life activists.

"The Task Force Director 'monitored' pro-life activists for years before charging them," including three defendants pardoned by President Donald Trump, and received tips about their planned "First Amendment activities [...] in case chargeable conduct occurred," the report says.

For example, NAF sent Patel a 137-page memo ahead of a pro-life conference with "dossiers" on individual activists including "addresses, photographs (including of spouses and minor children), names of associates and affiliated ministries, information about their upcoming travel plans or planned protests, and even drivers’ license numbers."

By contrast, the feds ignored threats to pro-life "pregnancy resource centers" until the American Center for Law and Justice told DOJ they are also covered by the FACE Act and had been "firebombed and vandalized" after the Supreme Court overturned federal abortion rights in the Dobbs decision in June 2022. 

Pro-life groups got a much frostier reception, with Civil Rights Division senior counsel Robert Weiner questioning whether pregnancy resource centers are even protected by the law and Patel inviting Assistant Attorney General Kristin Clarke to a meeting with them despite Clarke having called pro-life clinics "fake" and denounced a SCOTUS ruling in their favor. 

When Care Net objected that DOJ's FACE Resource Booklet overwhelmingly focuses on "anti-abortion extremist" activity, in the booklet's phrase, and repeatedly cites NAF as a trusted source, Weiner justified the disparate focus to Deputy Assistant AG Robert Moossy but acknowledged the sources "only" include abortion rights groups.

Texas GOP Rep. Chip Roy and the House Freedom Caucus, where he serves as policy chair, said the report shows the necessity of passing Roy's legislation to repeal the FACE Act, used overwhelmingly against pro-life activists but never by the Biden administration to prosecute attacks on houses of worship, which are also covered by the law.

Congress must convene "a select committee to expose this network" of feds and abortion rights groups and answer "Who coordinated? Who approved it? And who will be held accountable?" Roy wrote on X. He's currently in a runoff for the GOP nomination for Texas attorney general.

'Laughable' report is 'really a political statement'

Feminist Majority Foundation Executive Director Kathy Spillar told Just the News it was "sort of a badge of honor" to be named in the "laughable" report, as it has worked with GOP and Democratic administrations, including the first Trump administration, on threats and violence against abortion clinics since the late 1990s, predating the FACE Act.

"It's really a political statement more than anything" and not "well-researched," she said in a phone interview. "They've left out the arsons and the firebombings," attempted assassinations and threats against abortion clinic staff "widely used" by anti-abortion activists to "instill fear," which is what made the FACE Act a bipartisan success.

Spillar dismissed the report's characterization of nongovernmental organizations like hers as an arm of DOJ to be used in prosecuting their mutual opponents. FMF has always presented its research on violent anti-abortion groups "in a very public way" and has no investigative powers, she said.

"This is a crowd that has pardoned convicted felons," Spillar said, referring to Trump's pardons of FACE Act defendants, and his administration has made clear it won't prosecute non-fatal violence against abortion providers.

"Decades ago, Republican and Democratic lawmakers joined together to pass the FACE Act and address the violence, threats, and intimidation directed at patients trying to get essential health care, such as at Planned Parenthood health centers," a Planned Parenthood Federation of America spokesperson told Just the News when asked for its response to the report.

"At Planned Parenthood, we believe everyone should be able to safely get the sexual and reproductive health care they need," the email statement reads. "We stand firm against those who want to use violence to intimidate Planned Parenthood staff, patients, and supporters."

NAF did not answer a query.

Just the News could not find a contact for Patel, who was reportedly fired Monday among other FACE Act prosecutors, or any media organization that claims to have reached him for his response to the report.

Helping National Abortion Federation with grant applications

All but 39 pages of the 882-page report are exhibits such as the email chains among DOJ and abortion rights groups, taken from more than 700,000 internal records reviewed by the Trump DOJ for its implementation of the president's executive order against "anti-Christian bias" and Bondi's memo on restoring DOJ "integrity and credibility." 

One email chain shows Patel gushing over NAF Security Director Michelle Davidson to a redacted FBI agent in San Francisco, calling her a "wonderful contact for me as it relates to FACE Act investigations" and an "MVP bringing incidents to my attention, often in real-time, which usually result in an investigation/prosecution."

He enthusiastically agreed in late 2020 to be a reference for an NAF grant application to support its "training and threat monitoring services," without waiting for approval from his supervisor, Principal Deputy Chief Paige Fitzgerald, who told him to check with "our ethics person," the report says. The working group found no such ethics consultation or any retraction of his offer.

Two years later, NAF's Davidson asked Patel for even more help with a grant application. She requested a "short impact statement, on DOJ letterhead, and in your own words, on the importance" of NAF's security work for abortion providers and "how we work together" with DOJ "and some of the outcomes of our efforts." 

In an ethics request to DOJ trial attorney John Buckho on Davidson's request, Fitzgerald asked if there's "anything that we can do to tell grant folks that they are totally legit and they have been valuable to our law enforcement efforts."

Fitzgerald said DOJ's work with NAF goes back "decades" and the group "regularly refers potential FACE Act violations and other threats" to "reproductive health care providers." She portrayed the relationship as "one-way" from NAF, which the report says suggests she didn't know Patel was giving NAF intel on prosecutions and sentencing terms.

NAF, Planned Parenthood and the Feminist Majority Foundation, as nongovernmental organizations, "can poke around on the internet in ways that we can't, and they have shared leads with us," Fitzgerald told Buchko.

"We found no record of ethics approval for a DOJ attorney to take an interest in the financial outcome of a party having business before the Biden DOJ," which likely could not "give any such ethical clearance for this conflict of interest," the report says.

Prosecution of militant abortion group for 'political cover'

Pro-life groups seized on the report as evidence, with the Thomas More Society saying "that federal prosecutors selectively pursued pro-life advocates while giving the abortion lobby an open line to drive enforcement decisions." The group said it "represented clients in nearly every major FACE Act prosecution" in the report.

The public interest law firm said the report revealed its own attorneys were "singled out" by Biden DOJ prosecutors "for personal attacks" after a Philadelphia jury acquitted its client Mark Houck, raided by the FBI and arrested at gunpoint in front of his wife and children. Patel, for example, called the firm "quite the racket."

First Liberty Institute, which represented several pro-life centers threatened and vandalized after Dobbs, said the report shows the lone FACE Act prosecution of abortion-rights activists, in Florida, "appears to have been political cover for the Biden administration," showing prosecutors "could have done more to protect Americans nationwide."

Patel told colleagues he has "a very strong interest in charging a Jane’s Revenge subject" — the militant group that took credit for physical attacks on pro-life centers — 10 days after Houck's arrest, which prompted public and congressional outrage, the report says.

"I definitely need to keep" that prosecution "bc it may be the first FACE case we bring with a pro-life victim," Patel wrote. One indictment was unsealed the first day of Houck's trial.

The five FACE Act prosecutions of "non-violent" attacks on pro-life centers, three affiliated with Jane's Revenge, sought an average of 12.3 months in prison and resulted in actual sentences averaging three months, the report shows. 

By contrast, Biden's DOJ sought sentences averaging more than twice as long for nonviolent pro-life defendants, and got actual sentences nearly five times as long, prosecuting more than 45 defendants in 20-plus cases, a "significant increase" compared to prior presidents.

The Civil Rights Division's Special Litigation Section also brought several civil FACE Act cases "against many of these same pro-life Christians," doubling their jeopardy, the report says.