The Trump administration's Department of Justice has launched an internal review of how federal prosecutors under President Biden used a decades-old access law to bring criminal charges against anti-abortion demonstrators, a move that could reshape the legal landscape for pro-life activists who say they were selectively targeted for their beliefs.
The review centers on prosecutions brought under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, commonly known as the FACE Act, Just the News reported. The 1994 statute makes it a federal crime to use force, threat of force, or physical obstruction to interfere with someone obtaining or providing reproductive health services. Under the Biden DOJ, that law became the vehicle for a string of federal indictments against pro-life protesters, some of whom faced years in prison for conduct that critics say amounted to peaceful civil disobedience.
The FACE Act sat relatively dormant for much of its existence. Enforcement ticked upward sharply after the Supreme Court's 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade and returned abortion regulation to the states. In the months that followed, the Biden DOJ pursued multiple FACE Act cases against pro-life demonstrators across the country.
Among the most prominent prosecutions was the case against Mark Houck, a Catholic father and sidewalk counselor from Pennsylvania. Federal agents arrested Houck at his home in a predawn raid in September 2022, a show of force that drew intense criticism from conservatives and religious liberty advocates. Houck was charged under the FACE Act for an alleged altercation with a Planned Parenthood escort. A jury acquitted him in January 2023.
Despite that acquittal, the Biden DOJ continued to pursue other FACE Act cases. Several defendants in a case stemming from a 2020 sit-in at a Washington, D.C., abortion clinic were convicted and sentenced to prison terms. Those sentences ranged up to several years, penalties that pro-life groups called grossly disproportionate to the underlying conduct.
The core grievance from pro-life advocates and Republican lawmakers has been selective enforcement. They point out that while the Biden DOJ aggressively prosecuted anti-abortion protesters under the FACE Act, the department showed far less urgency in pursuing those who attacked pregnancy resource centers and churches in the wake of the Dobbs decision. The group Jane's Revenge claimed credit for firebombings and vandalism at dozens of pro-life facilities during the summer of 2022. Federal arrests in those cases were scarce.
Republican members of Congress raised this disparity repeatedly during oversight hearings. They argued that the Biden DOJ treated the FACE Act as a one-way weapon, deploying it against pro-life activists while ignoring violence directed at pro-life organizations. The pattern of politically charged DOJ investigations became a flashpoint in broader debates about whether the department had been politicized under Biden's leadership.
Defenders of the Biden-era prosecutions maintained that the FACE Act applies equally regardless of viewpoint and that the cases brought met the statutory elements. They argued that sit-ins and blockades at clinic entrances constituted physical obstruction under the law and that the sentences reflected the seriousness of the conduct.
The scope of the new review has not been fully detailed in public statements. Based on the reporting from Just the News, the investigation will examine how FACE Act cases were selected, whether prosecutorial discretion was exercised in a viewpoint-neutral manner, and whether the charging decisions and sentencing recommendations were proportionate.
Investigators will need to determine whether internal DOJ communications reveal any political pressure or bias in case selection. They will also likely assess whether field offices received directives from Washington that prioritized certain categories of FACE Act violations over others.
The review comes as the Trump administration has signaled a broader willingness to scrutinize Biden-era DOJ conduct. That posture has already produced friction. The turbulent confirmation process for Trump's attorney general pick highlighted deep divisions over how aggressively the new DOJ should revisit its predecessor's decisions.
Authorities have not publicly confirmed whether the review could lead to disciplinary action against individual prosecutors, policy changes within the DOJ's Civil Rights Division, or efforts to seek relief for defendants already convicted and sentenced.
Some Republican lawmakers have called for outright repeal of the FACE Act, arguing that state trespass and obstruction laws already cover the conduct it targets. Others prefer to keep the statute but strip it of the harsh federal penalties that turned misdemeanor-level protest conduct into felony charges carrying multi-year prison terms.
The law's future may also depend on how courts interpret its scope going forward. Several convicted defendants have pursued appeals challenging both the constitutionality of the FACE Act and the specific application of its provisions to their conduct. Those cases remain pending in various federal circuits.
The DOJ review adds another chapter to a growing list of Biden-era legal actions facing second looks under the new administration. The Eighth Circuit's recent dismantling of Biden's SAVE student loan plan illustrated how federal courts have already begun unwinding the prior administration's legal framework on multiple fronts.
For pro-life defendants who served prison time or still face pending charges, the review carries personal stakes that extend well beyond policy debates. Several have described the prosecutions as life-altering, citing lost jobs, strained families, and the stigma of a federal conviction for what they characterize as acts of conscience.
The FACE Act controversy fits within a larger pattern of questions about DOJ impartiality that have dogged the department across administrations. Critics on the right have pointed to everything from the handling of the Trump-Russia investigation to the treatment of parents at school board meetings as evidence of institutional bias. Critics on the left have raised their own objections when the department's enforcement priorities shift under Republican leadership.
What distinguishes the FACE Act situation, in the eyes of conservative legal observers, is the starkness of the alleged double standard. Pro-life facilities suffered documented arson and vandalism. Federal enforcement was minimal. Pro-life protesters engaged in sit-ins. Federal enforcement was aggressive, swift, and punitive. That contrast, whether or not it reflects deliberate bias, created a perception problem the department has not resolved.
The Trump DOJ's willingness to investigate its own predecessor's conduct also raises questions about institutional norms. Past administrations have generally been reluctant to formally review the prosecutorial decisions of the prior team, treating such reviews as threats to DOJ independence. The current administration appears less concerned with that tradition, viewing accountability for perceived abuses as a higher priority. The department has already faced setbacks in court on other fronts, but the internal review of FACE Act prosecutions is a different kind of exercise, one directed inward rather than at an outside adversary.
Investigators have not said whether the review will produce a public report or remain an internal matter. Pro-life organizations have called for full transparency, arguing that the American public deserves to see whether their government used federal criminal law as a tool of political retaliation.
The timeline for the review remains unclear. Complex internal investigations of prosecutorial conduct can take months, particularly when they involve multiple field offices and cases spanning several jurisdictions. The involvement of the Civil Rights Division, which handled many of the FACE Act cases, adds another layer of institutional complexity.
Meanwhile, defendants in pending FACE Act cases face uncertainty about whether the new DOJ will continue to pursue those prosecutions, seek reduced sentences, or move to dismiss charges altogether. Any such decisions would carry enormous symbolic weight for both sides of the abortion debate.
For the families who watched federal agents show up at their doors over protest activity, the review is not an abstraction. It is a question of whether the most powerful law enforcement apparatus in the country can be trusted to treat Americans equally, regardless of which side of a political divide they stand on.
When the Justice Department picks winners and losers based on viewpoint, it does not just damage the people it targets. It damages the legitimacy of federal law enforcement itself.
