Texas Congressman Chip Roy (R) demanded Thursday that the FBI and Justice Department preserve all records of its prosecution of peaceful pro-life protesters under the FACE Act.
In a letter first shared with The Daily Wire, Roy called on FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland to take steps to keep all documentation of their Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) cases. The FACE Act is a Clinton-era law that makes it a federal crime to physically obstruct the entrance to an abortion facility.
Roy, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government, has long called for the FACE Act to be repealed because of its disproportionate use against pro-lifers. He told Biden administration officials that he remained “concerned with the Biden-Harris Administration’s continued weaponization of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act against pro-life Americans.”
“As the Subcommittee continues to conduct oversight over the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) enforcement of the FACE Act, serious questions remain about the disparity in prosecutions between Americans supporting life and the violent attacks on pregnancy resource centers that occurred in the wake of the leak of the draft Supreme Court opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization,” Roy wrote.
Data shows that 97% of all FACE prosecutions since the law’s inception have been against pro-lifers, even though the law was passed to protect churches and pregnancy centers.
“Congress has a sacred duty to preserve the rights of the American people, including the First Amendment, against any overreach by the executive branch,” Roy said. “As we examine how to best protect Americans’ fundamental freedoms, the Subcommittee must first understand how the DOJ and FBI use the FACE Act.”
Peaceful pro-life protesters across the country, from Tennessee to Washington, D.C., have received prison time in FACE Act cases. Meanwhile, a growing number of crisis pregnancy centers have been attacked in the wake of the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade. At least 94 centers have been vandalized since the draft of the decision to overturn Roe leaked in May 2022.
Roy said that the FBI and Justice Department should take steps to retain all documents, communications, and other information, including electronic information, from past, present, and future prosecutions.
The Biden-Harris administration has frequently paired FACE Act prosecutions with conspiracy against rights charges, a Reconstruction-era measure that was designed to crack down on the Ku Klux Klan. A conviction on the conspiracy charge could carry a penalty of over 11 years in prison and hundreds of thousands in fines.
Efforts to have the FACE Act struck down are underway. The Thomas More Society has filed several appeals to convictions of pro-lifers that are currently making their way through the courts.
“FACE always was about protecting one thing and that was abortion,” Thomas More Society lawyer Steve Crampton said last month. “Since the Dobbs decision and the overturn of Roe, abortion is no longer recognized as a federally protected right. So FACE is an act without really a purpose.”
