Today Rep. Chris Smith thanked President Donald Trump for his pardon of peaceful pro-life activists who had been pursued with a vengeance and imprisoned by the Biden Administration.

   “At the behest of progressive activists, the Biden Administration blatantly weaponized the power of federal law enforcement against peaceful pro-life advocates because their beliefs conflicted with President Biden’s radical abortion agenda,” said Rep. Chris Smith, co-chair of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus. “I am grateful that President Trump has restored justice, ending an ugly era of discrimination against peaceful, often times prayerful pro-life dissenters.”

   Following the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson decision in June 2022, the Biden Administration repeatedly applied overly harsh penalties against pro-life Americans to silence or intimidate them. A first-time offense against the FACE Act can carry up to one year in jail.  In many cases, the Biden Administration paired FACE Act charges with charges under Conspiracy Against Rights to apply an additional ten years in prison.

   Smith led the opposition to the FACE Act when it was considered in 1993-1994 and signed into law by President Bill Clinton.  At the time, Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) said, “[T]he House is poised to stack the deck against peaceful pro-life activists so as to make them prey, an easy mark for ruinous prosecution and civil suits.”

   In May 2024, Rep. Chris Smith and other lawmakers called for justice for the pro-life Americans persecuted by the Biden Administration.  Rep. Smith also led a letter to top officials at the United States Marshals Service (USMS) and the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) demanding answers over alarming reports that elderly pro-life advocates were not even receiving necessary medical care in jail while awaiting sentencing by a U.S. District Court judge.  

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