Category: Bloomberg

Officials at the DOJ delivered a politically convenient one-two punch to the work of their predecessors this week.

The Department of Justice’s “Weaponization Working Group” issued its first report, accusing the Biden administration of unfairly targeting Christian and anti-abortion activists with federal charges. On the same day, the DOJ filed a motion to vacate the convictions of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys who were found guilty of seditious conspiracy for their actions during the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol — even though President Donald Trump had already pardoned them.

The moves are an attempt to rewrite history and make it appear that the Biden administration had abused its authority. They also make our nation less safe by normalizing vigilante violence and whitewashing the records of those predisposed to commit crimes.

The Weaponization Working Group was created by former Attorney General Pam Bondi to restore the DOJ’s “core values.” Its first report, released Tuesday, alleges the department under Biden abused the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, the federal statute that makes it a crime to block access to abortion clinics. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who took over the department just weeks ago after Bondi was fired, called the cases “selective prosecution on the basis of beliefs.” But the cases themselves belie that claim.

Many of the defendants were charged with illegal and dangerous conduct, including firebombing, arson, bomb threats and coordinated blockages. As Dawn Ison, the US attorney in Detroit, stated after a jury convicted eight defendants for physically obstructing access to clinics in Michigan, “These defendants are entitled to their views, but they are not entitled to prevent others from exercising the rights secured to them by the laws of the United States.”

Blanche’s release of the report also comes at a convenient time for Trump’s political interests, although it’s likely been in the works for weeks or even months. Trump is engaged in a public and bizarre feud with Pope Leo, who has criticized the president’s treatment of immigrants and military aggression. In response, Trump’s attacks on the pope as “weak on crime” and “terrible for foreign policy” have cost him support with Catholics.

Trump had already pardoned 24 FACE Act defendants earlier in his term, and the DOJ paid to settle civil lawsuits with some of them. Bondi and Blanche had also fired prosecutors who worked on those cases in an apparent attempt to purge lawyers with priorities that might be unappealing to important political voting blocs. A settlement of more than $1 million reportedly went to a man convicted of shoving to the ground a 72-year old volunteer escort at a Planned Parenthood facility in Pennsylvania. The payout came despite a judge’s decision to dismiss the case on the grounds that the plaintiff’s “indignation is not a substitute for plausibility.”

But Trump’s DOJ claims to know better. As part of its action to “rectify these wrongs,” the Justice Department announced that going forward, federal prosecutors may only pursue cases under the FACE Act in “extraordinary circumstances or in cases presenting significant aggravating factors.”

That means women and abortion providers will, once again, face the kinds of dangers they did before the act was passed in 1994. Imagine a pregnant woman who had received devastating news of an ectopic pregnancy or a lethal fetal anomaly having to face a group of extremists, blocking her path and berating her, on her way to a clinic. Or consider health-care providers worrying each time they go to work whether a Molotov cocktail will come through the window.

The request to vacate the convictions against members of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, likewise, normalizes vigilante violence. At trial, prosecutors presented evidence that the defendants, wearing helmets and battle gear, stormed the Capitol in a military-style formation in a plot to block Congress from certifying Joe Biden as president. Yet the DOJ now says the grounds for vacating the convictions is “the interests of justice.” The Trump administration’s treatment of the attackers promotes the narrative that they were “great patriots” and “political prisoners” and encourages similar behavior in the future.