EXCLUSIVE: Congress To Examine How Biden DOJ Targeted Pro-Lifers

Lawmakers will highlight how President Joe Biden’s Justice Department targeted pro-life activists in a pre-Christmas hearing, The Daily Wire has learned.

The Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government of the Committee on the Judiciary will host a hearing on December 18 titled “Revisiting the Implications of the FACE Act: Part 2.” It follows a May 2023 hearing investigating the implications of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, which prohibits Americans from interfering with access to “reproductive health services,” including pregnancy centers.

The Daily Wire is first reporting the hearing, which will feature witnesses including Paul Vaughn, a pro-life father of 11 arrested at his home in October 2022 by armed authorities. Vaughn had participated in a peaceful protest of an abortion clinic in Mount Juliet, Tennessee, for which the Biden Justice Department charged him with “conspiracy against rights secured by the FACE Act, and committing FACE Act violations.”

Other witnesses include Erin Hawley, senior counsel and vice president at Alliance Defending Freedom; Steve Crampton, who represents pro-life activists in prison as senior counsel for the Thomas More Society; and an undeclared Democrat witness.

The hearing will examine the Biden Justice Department’s “unequal application” of the FACE Act. It is particularly consequential given that President-elect Donald Trump has promised to investigate whether the Biden administration “unjustly” persecuted pro-life activists, and to “get them out of the gulags and back to their families where they belong.”

There are currently 10 pro-life activists incarcerated in federal prisons on FACE Act charges, led by the Justice Department’s Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, Kristen Clarke.

Most of those currently imprisoned were involved in a Washington, D.C., incident which they describe as a “rescue,” an event where they tried to stop abortions from taking place at Washington Surgi-Clinic, where a notorious abortionist named Cesare Santangelo operates. According to the Justice Department, the pro-life activists used “their bodies, furniture, chains and ropes” to block the entrance of the abortion clinic.

These are the pro-life activists who have been imprisoned by the Biden Justice Department:

Lauren Handy

Lauren Handy, 29, is serving a 57-month sentence in FCI Tallahassee, a prison in Florida where Jeffrey Epstein’s cohort Ghislaine Maxwell is also housed. Handy’s projected release date is August 2027. Her charges stemmed from her participation in a “rescue” in 2020 in Washington, D.C.

Herb Geraghty

Herb Geraghty, 26, is serving a 27-month sentence in FDC Philadelphia, a prison in Pennsylvania, for participating in the same D.C. rescue as Handy.

Heather Idoni

Heather Idoni, 62, is serving a 24-month sentence at the Sanilac County Sheriff’s jail, but is also awaiting sentencing in a separate Michigan case and in a Tennessee case, all brought by the Biden Justice Department.

Jean Marshall

Jean Marshall, 74, is serving a 24-month sentence in FCI Danbury, a Connecticut prison where Steven Bannon was formerly imprisoned by the Biden Justice Department for the same 2020 Washington, D.C. incident. Her projected release date is March 2025.

Joan Bell

Joan Bell, 75,  is serving a 27-month sentence in FDC Philadelphia, also for her participation in the D.C. rescue. Her projected release date is June 2025.

Jonathan Darnel

Jonathan Darnel, 42, is serving a 34-month sentence in FCI Thomson, an Illinois prison, with a projected release date of February 2026. Darnel was also imprisoned over the 2020 rescue in Washington, D.C.

William Goodman

William Goodman, 53, is serving a 27-month sentence in FCI Danbury, with a projected release date of July 2025, also as a consequence of the 2020 D.C. rescue.

John Hinshaw

John Hinshaw, 68, is imprisoned in FMC Devens in Massachusetts, where he will be until his projected release date of February 2025. He also was part of the 2020 rescue.

Calvin Zastrow

Calvin Zastrow, 63, is serving six months in FCI Thomson, with a projected release date of February 2025, and then 3 years of supervised release. He also was part of the 2020 rescue.

Bevelyn Williams

Bevelyn Williams, 33, is serving 41 months in FCI Aliceville, a prison in Alabama, with a projected release date of September 2027.

Other Pro-Lifers Punished by DOJ

Meanwhile, Paulette Harlow, Coleman Boyd, Chester Gallagher, Paul Place, James Zastrow, Eva Zastrow, Dennis Green, and Paul Vaughn are serving home detention sentences.

Eva Edl, a World War II-era death camp survivor, is waiting for sentencing in her case, as are Justin Phillps and Joel Curry.

Three pro-lifers have been released from their sentences: Jay Smith, Steven LeFamine, and Fr. Fidelis Moscinski, a Catholic priest.