How Trump’s pardons fixed the wrongs of the woketopus

President Donald Trump pardoned 23 pro-life protesters who had been convicted for actions including praying outside abortion centers and encouraging women in unplanned pregnancies to choose life.

“They should not have been prosecuted,” Trump said. “Many of them are elderly people. They should not have been prosecuted. This is a great honor to sign this.”

The protesters had been convicted of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act.

The Daily Wire’s Mary Margaret Olohan and Leif Le Mahieu previously reported that the pardons were coming. The news comes after journalists like The Daily Signal’s Elizabeth Mitchell called for the pardons.

Americans witnessed a massive miscarriage of justice under the Biden-Harris administration on this issue. According to the Justice Department, the FACE Act “prohibits threats of force, obstruction, and property damage intended to interfere with reproductive health care services.” This applies to both abortion centers and pro-life pregnancy centers.

Yet the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division did not apply the FACE Act evenly. According to Catholic Vote, at least 96 pro-life pregnancy centers and pro-life groups have faced vandalism and violent attacks after the leak of the Supreme Court’s opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022), the ruling that overturned Roe. Pro-abortion vandals spray-painted, “REVENGE,” and “If abortions aren’t safe, neither are you.”

The Civil Rights Division only leveled five charges against pro-abortion vandals who attacked pregnancy centers, while it prosecuted more than 50 pro-life protesters who attempted to dissuade women from having their unborn babies killed in the womb. When asked about the discrepancy, Attorney General Merrick Garland meekly replied that the DOJ just couldn’t track down vandals who attacked under cover of darkness. Color me skeptical.

My new book, “The Woketopus: The Dark Money Cabal Manipulating the Federal Government,” shines some much needed light on how woke activist groups pushed the administration in this direction.

The lopsided approach to law enforcement appears to have been conscious policy.

In December 2022, then-Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta stated that the court’s overturning of Roe increased “the urgency of our work, including enforcement of the FACE Act, to ensure continued lawful access to reproductive services.”

Indeed, the Civil Rights Division prosecuted these cases with tremendous vigor. The Biden DOJ raided the house of Mark Houck, a Catholic father of seven, in charging him with violating the FACE Act for pushing an abortion center volunteer who was repeatedly harassing his son. Not only had local authorities dropped the matter, but a jury found Houck not guilty of the FACE Act charges.

Unfortunately, not every case has proceeded like Houck’s. Many pro-life protesters spent Christmas in jail or in prison for their decision to peacefully protest the killing of the unborn. Eva Edl, 89, survived a concentration camp in Yugoslavia before coming to the United States and protesting abortion here. She had prepared to die in prison.

The Biden DOJ’s weaponization of the FACE Act against pro-life protesters traces back to the Left’s vast influence campaign in the federal government. Both Gupta—the assistant attorney general who said stepping up FACE Act enforcement is a response to Dobbs—and Kristen Clarke—the woman who heads the Civil Rights Division and enforces the FACE Act—worked at pro-abortion groups that tie abortion to “racial justice.”

Gupta worked at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the American Civil Liberties Union. Clarke worked at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and became executive director at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. Leaders from these groups met with White House staff at least 7 times each.

These organizations have received millions through the Left’s dark money funding network. Here’s a taste of my research on this (more in the book):

• The NAACP Legal Defense Fund received $240,000 from New Venture Fund (a nonprofit established by Arabella Advisors) and $1.2 million from the Tides Foundation (a dark money nonprofit).
•  The ACLU received a $15 million grant from the Open Society Foundations (the nonprofit founded by George Soros and now run by his son, Alex Soros) in 2022.
• The Lawyers’ Committee received $2 million from New Venture Fund (another Arabella-founded nonprofit) and $1 million from the Tides Foundation.

Lauren Johnson, director of the ACLU’s Abortion Criminal Defense Initiative, claims that “the criminalization of abortion care” represents “another way in which our criminal legal system is being wielded to control the bodies and futures of people who are disproportionately Black, Brown, and low-income.”

These groups often take their cues on this issue from the National Abortion Federation, which tracks alleged threats against abortion centers. While Americans oppose acts of violence against abortion centers, the vast majority of the “incidents” in NAF’s annual report involved “picketing,” where pro-life protesters stand outside abortion centers, urging mothers to keep their babies.

NAF’s approach to pregnancy centers is rather revealing. “Anti-abortion centers, sometimes called ‘crisis pregnancy centers’ (CPCs), are fake clinics, often subsidized by taxpayer dollars, that use deceptive practices to dissuade people from seeking abortions,” the report warns. The report does not note that these centers provide counseling, free maternal and baby resources, and child care, among other things. Instead, it condemns them as “another tactic in the war on bodily autonomy.”

No wonder NAF’s allies don’t take threats to pregnancy centers seriously!

When the Center for American Progress—a central hub of the Woketopus that fed more than sixty officials into the Biden administration—called for the DOJ to enforce the FACE Act, it left out any mention of pregnancy centers.

“The federal government must … actively enforce the FACE Act to prevent violence targeting abortion providers and patients,” the center wrote in a post titled, “A Proactive Abortion Agenda.”

Trump’s pardon for pro-life protesters sends the message that he is reversing the woke weaponization of law enforcement the Woketopus demanded. It also highlights the nefarious influence of these woke activist groups on the federal government—an influence that will not disappear just because Trump took office.

Tyler O’Neil is managing editor of The Daily Signal and the author of two books: “Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center,” and “The Woketopus: The Dark Money Cabal Manipulating the Federal Government.”