Tag Archives: Mark Houck

Forced To Face The Music

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On Wednesday, The New York Post posted an article about the appearance of Attorney General Merrick Garland before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. A number of Republican Senators used the appearance to point out how unevenly Merrick Garland’s Justice Department is enforcing various laws.

The article reports:

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) excoriated the attorney general’s extraordinary inaction over the past 10 months as pro-abortion protesters have harassed Supreme Court justices at their homes in the wake of the leaked Dobbs decision, despite a federal law that bans “picketing or parading” near a judge’s residence.

“When rioters descended on the homes of six Supreme Court justices, night after night after night, you did nothing,” raged Cruz.

“The department did nothing when extremist groups, like Ruth Sent Us and Jane’s Revenge, openly organized campaigns of harassment at the homes of justices …

“When the same groups posted online information about where the justices worship, or their home addresses, or where their kids went to school, you again sat on your hands and did nothing. 

Next Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) pointed out the following:

Next, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) grilled Garland about the disparate treatment of Christian pro-life activists arrested outside abortion clinics compared to pro-abortion activists who have gone unpunished after firebombing pregnancy centers.

He cited the case of Mark Houck, the Catholic father of seven acquitted in January of federal assault charges over an altercation outside a Philadelphia abortion clinic.

Houck was arrested at gunpoint in front of his terrified family in an FBI raid.

“This is a case where a Catholic pro-life demonstrator, a father, was accused of disorderly conduct in front of an abortion center,” Hawley said.

“The Philadelphia DA, who is a Democrat, very progressive, declined to prosecute. There was a private suit that got dismissed. Then after all that, your Justice Department sent between 20 and 30 agents in the early-morning hours to the Houck residence to arrest this guy after he had offered to turn himself in voluntarily.”

Garland said the FBI “dis­agreed” with that description of the raid.

So Hawley got out an easel and displayed a blown-up photo of fearsome-looking FBI agents with long guns, ballistic shields and bulletproof vests.

There is no excuse for this sort of behavior by the Justice Department. If we do not elect people who will uphold the law and who will appoint people who will uphold the law, we will descend into tyranny.

The Jury Gets It Right

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On Monday, Ed Morrissey at Hot Air posted an article about the federal court jury that found Mark Houck not guilty. As you may remember, Mark Houck was arrested in an early morning raid on his house by an armed swat team in front of his children. What was his crime? He was charged with violating the The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE Act). Mr. Houck leads a pro-life group that provides sidewalk counseling at abortion clinics in Philadelphia. The incident in question involves one of the abortion clinic escorts harassing Mark Houck’s son. When the case was originally brought to court, the court threw it out. Then the federal government decided to get involved.

The article at Hot Air reports:

By the way, this isn’t over yet. Eleven others face prosecution for FACE Act charges for allegedly blocking access to abortion clinics, as Greg points out in a subsequent tweet. The Daily Signal’s Mary Margaret Olohan covered this in October:

…Amid accusations that it is targeting pro-lifers to silence and intimidate, the Justice Department has charged 11 more pro-life activists with violations of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act for blocking the entrance of an abortion clinic in 2021.

The 11 activists were charged with FACE Act violations stemming from their 2021 “blockade” of an abortion clinic in Mount Juliet, Tennessee. This blockade was peaceful, pro-life activist AJ Hurley told The Daily Signal on Wednesday evening.

Several of the activists were arrested on the day of the blockade, after reportedly successfully preventing abortions from taking place at the clinic for most of the day, but police reportedly released these activists later in the day after they posted bail for misdemeanor charges, the pro-life news outlet Live Action reported.

The article also notes:

Meanwhile, the FBI has done little to pursue actual acts of vandalism and political violence that targeted pro-life clinics. Two people got indicted last week in Florida. but most other victims have barely heard from the FBI — and the 30-agent raid model somehow didn’t get deployed in these cases, either.

It seems that the process is the punishment at the Department of Justice. It’s yet another good reason that Kevin McCarthy and House Republicans have established a new select committee on the weaponization of federal law enforcement. Mark Houck will no doubt provide chapter and verse on that subject, starting with the astonishing raid over an argument.