‘Kidnapped At Gunpoint’: Pro-Life Activist Testifies About Harrowing FBI Raid Of Home

A Christian pro-life father of 11 described before Congress on Wednesday the armed FBI raid on his home in Tennessee after the Biden administration brought charges against him over a peaceful pro-life protest.

Paul Vaughn, of Centerville, Tennessee, appeared before the House Judiciary Committee on the Constitution and Limited Government on Wednesday to speak about his experience being prosecuted by the Justice Department under the FACE Act. The FACE Act is a Clinton-era law that was supposedly to protect both abortion facilities and churches from violence. In practice, the law has been used by the Biden administration to prosecute peaceful pro-life activists across the country.

The FBI arrested Vaughn on October 5, 2022, after he was involved in a peaceful protest at the Carafem abortion facility in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, in March 2021, where protesters prayed and sang Christian hymns. Vaughn was charged with violating the FACE Act and engaging in a conspiracy against rights, a Reconstruction-era charge meant to crack down on violence by the Ku Klux Klan.

“My house was assaulted, my wife and children were terrorized, and I was kidnapped at gunpoint by four armed men,” Vaughn told lawmakers of the arrest. “I had just sent three of my children to the car so I could take them to school when the house began to shake from a loud banging near the front door. I heard men shouting from my front porch, ‘Open up! FBI!’”

Vaughn said that he saw two unmarked SUVs with flashing lights outside his home and men with automatic rifles and a pistol aimed at his door.

“I opened the curtains on my front door to find three men with guns trained on the front door,” he said, adding that the federal agents did not identify themselves.

“I later learned at the same time three of my children, ages 12, 14, and 18, were being detained in the side yard on the edge of the woods by a fourth armed man. I was taken without the presentation of a warrant or identification when requested. Make no mistake: this was an armed conflict and I was unarmed. Lethal force was abused to abridge my God-given and constitutionally secured rights.”

Vaughn said that the FACE Act was passed as a tool to “stifle free speech and abuse the rights of Christian conservatives.” Data show that 97% of all prosecutions of the FACE Act since its inception have been against pro-lifers. Under Biden, the Justice Department has brought 24 FACE Act cases with all but two coming against pro-life activists.

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“The FACE Act was ostensibly passed because of violence. But as my family knows very well, all it did was give violence the cover of law and place it in the hands of the government,” Vaughn said.

Paired with the felony conspiracy charge, the activists have faced over a decade in prison and hundreds of thousands in fines. Multiple pro-lifers are currently serving prison sentences, including Cal Zastrow, one of Vaughn’s co-defendants in Tennessee.

Vaughn, who was convicted in January, was sentenced over the summer to three years of supervised release and has been prohibited from leaving the Middle District of Tennessee. He was given a special exception to travel to D.C. for the hearing.

Other testimony during the hearing came from Alliance Defending Freedom lawyer Erin Hawley and Thomas More Society lawyer Steve Crampton, who has served as lawyer for many of the pro-life defendants prosecuted under Biden.

The hearing was led by Reps. Chip Roy (R-TX) and Dan Bishop (R-NC). Roy has consistently called for the FACE Act to be repealed and demanded that the Justice Department keep its records of the pro-life prosecutions.