Mastriano: Arrest of PA pro-life activist 'abuse of power'

FPI / September 28, 2022

FBI agents on Saturday morning stormed the Pennsylvania home of pro-life activist Mark Houck.

What crime could Houck have committed to prompt some 25 FBI agents to arrest Houck in front of his crying children?

Houck allegedly assaulted (shoved) a man who had been harassing his 12-year-old son outside of a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in Philadelphia.

Houck's attorney, Peter Breen, said the case has already made its way through the state court process and was thrown out but that the Biden Department of Justice took up the matter nearly a year later as a form of "political prosecution." Of the estimated FBI agents who raided Houck’s home, Breen said the DOJ is treating the peaceful father of seven "as if he was a drug lord or a mafia boss."

Here is how the DOJ explained it:

“Assault is always a serious offense, and under the (Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances) FACE Act, if the victim is targeted because of their association with a reproductive healthcare clinic, it is a federal crime,” huffed U.S. Attorney Jacqueline Romero.

Jacqueline Maguire, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's Philadelphia Division, added: “Put simply, violence is never the answer. Violating the FACE Act by committing a physical assault is a serious crime for which the FBI will work to hold offenders accountable.”

Team Biden's DOJ "has not only bastardized the language, but it has also weaponized the law to advance the interests of the Democrat Party. That this arrest took place in the politically contested state of Pennsylvania is not likely a coincidence," Jack Cashill wrote in a Sept. 26 op-ed for American Thinker.

"It struck me as beyond belief that two dozen or so armed FBI agents would swarm the house of a Catholic father of seven, rifles drawn, and arrest him in front of his weeping children for anything short of murder," Cashill wrote.

Pennsylvania's GOP gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano saw the raid for what it was: “This show of force was carried out by the Biden regime against ordinary Americans is an abuse of power that stands against the fundamental principles on which our country was founded. As Governor, I will not allow the police state of Biden to enforce his persecution against his political enemies on sacred Pennsylvania soil.”

Meanwhile, Attorney General Merrick Garland's DOJ has completely ignored attacks against pro-life entities and the Catholic Church.

The Catholic News Agency reports 97 such attacks in the months following the leak of the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v Wade, 53 of them against pregnancy centers.

Cashill concluded: "Has the FBI gone too far? For the Left, if the enemy is the right, it cannot go far enough."

Free Press International
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