Pro-Life Father of 11 Prosecuted by Biden's DOJ to Testify Before

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A pro-life, Christian father of 11, who was allegedly held at gunpoint by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in front of his wife and children and prosecuted by the Biden Department of Justice (DOJ), will testify before Congress on Wednesday.

Paul Vaughn, who faced 11 years behind bars for his role in a peaceful protest outside of an abortion facility in Tennessee in 2021, will specifically testify about the DOJ’s alleged weaponization of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. The pro-abortion Biden administration’s DOJ has come under scrutiny for using the federal law, combined with “conspiracy against rights,” to target pro-life activists, accounting for nearly a quarter of all cases since the law’s inception in 1994.

The House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government is holding the hearing at 2 p.m. ET, and “will examine the Biden-Harris Department of Justice’s unequal application of the FACE Act,” according to the committee. Vaughn will be joined by his attorney, Thomas More Society Senior Counsel Steve Crampton, and Senior Counsel and Vice President of Alliance Defending Freedom Erin Hawley.

Vaughn, who was one of 11 pro-life activists prosecuted for the protest, ultimately avoided prison time and was sentenced to three years of supervised release in July. Vaughn’s attorneys are working to appeal his case, which has been consolidated with another similar case out of Washington, DC, and is currently on hold ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s reentrance into the White House

The hearing comes as Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) continue to push for Congress to repeal the FACE Act. The lawmakers introduced a bill in September of 2023 to repeal the law, contending at the time that “Biden’s Department of Justice has brazenly weaponized the FACE Act against normal everyday Americans across the political spectrum, simply because they are pro-life.” Roy further said he thinks the law is “an unconstitutional federal takeover of state police powers.”

President-elect Trump has also pledged — in 2023 and again in 2024 — to create a task force to review and potentially pardon or commute the sentences of every “political prisoner who’s been unjustly persecuted by the Biden administration,” including pro-life activists.

The FACE Act was signed into law by then-President Bill Clinton and outlaws “violent, threatening, damaging, and obstructive conduct intended to injure, intimidate, or interfere with the right to seek, obtain, or provide reproductive health services.” The act was written to equally protect abortion clinics, pro-life pregnancy resource centers, and churches, however, 97 percent of FACE Act cases since the law’s inception have been against pro-life advocates.

“In my view — and I’ve been defending FACE Act cases really from the time FACE was adopted back in 1994 — it’s always been about abortion,” Crampton told Breitbart News this month. “They put the window dressing of protecting churches and so forth in there just to buy some Republican support and make it bipartisan, but it’s always been about shutting down the pro-life movement.”

Data obtained by Rep. Roy shows that in less than four years, Biden’s DOJ has accounted for over a quarter of all 211 FACE prosecutions. At least 55 FACE Act cases have been prosecuted during the Biden administration, only five of which were against pro-abortion attacks on pregnancy centers, despite the increase in attacks against pro-life pregnancy centers and churches following the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision.

“I think everything points to the fact that these [prosecutions] are politically motivated. They were brought basically as punishment after the overturning of Roe v. Wade,” Crampton said. “And the fact that the Biden administration formed the so-called reproductive rights task force also after Dobbs only strengthens the case. They made this interdepartmental … effort to engage in, effectively, a witch hunt against pro-lifers.”

In light of Trump’s pledge to review and pardon jailed pro-life activists, Crampton said Thomas More Society is currently working to prepare a formal petitions requesting presidential pardons, not just for the pro-life activists they represent, but for many others in similar cases.

“We’re going the extra mile and doing the hard labor of preparing formal petitions, and we’re going hand them over to Trump’s transition team in hopes that he will follow through,” he said.

Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton.