Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon promised to hold criminals accountable for bombing and vandalizing pro-life pregnancy centers with the same law formerly used to jail pro-lifers.
Dhillon’s Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice (DOJ) aims to bring “numerous” such cases using the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, she told The Daily Signal in a Thursday interview. The Biden administration primarily used the FACE Act to prosecute pro-life activists for peacefully protesting at abortion clinics, despite the law also protecting pregnancy resource centers and houses of worship.
“While the statute is in place, it provides protection for both people who are going to abortion clinics as well as crisis pregnancy centers,” Dhillon said, echoing statements she made in April. Dhillon expanded on her goals in the Daily Signal interview.
“We intend to prosecute numerous attacks that have happened on those over the years with people coming forward with the right evidence that we need,” Dhillon told the outlet.
Around 200 pregnancy centers have been attacked in the past few years, Dhillon said. Several bombings against pro-life pregnancy centers in 2022 have gone unsolved, even after the FBI opened investigations, the Daily Caller News Foundation previously reported.
“We don’t have 200 cases we can bring because we don’t have evidence of who committed the crimes,” Dhillon told The Daily Signal.
“We are very much interested in evidence and bringing those cases, and so people should feel free to come forward,” Dhillon said. “They can contact us, they can contact the FBI, work with even local law enforcement, and we would love to bring cases to hold people accountable who interfered with the right of a woman to seek health care.”
President Donald Trump pardoned nearly two dozen pro-lifers prosecuted under the FACE Act by the Biden administration during his first week back in office. Dhillon previously told the DCNF that the days of the Biden administration “weaponizing” the Civil Rights Division for various left-wing causes are over.
“We have changed the priorities, not the mission, the priorities, in each of the sections in the Civil Rights Division,” she said at the time.
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