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Melinda French Gates is dumping $1 billion into women's organizations, including groups that promote killing unborn babies via abortion.
The post Melinda French Gates to Dump a Billion Dollars into Abortion, Women’s Orgs appeared first on Breitbart.
“You can’t lead America with ancient ideas.”
That was the claim—shouted, not spoken—by the president of the United States in what was considered by many to be the most divisive State of the Union address ever given before a joint session of Congress.
President Joe Biden’s March 7 lecture seemed to punctuate what has become a brutally disheartening term in office, with liberals demanding Americans throw aside traditional values and institutions for a “liberating” future of hedonistic affirmation in the pursuit of an ambiguous “equity.”
This bastardized system of values—promoted by the Left to usurp the traditional American institutions of faith, family, and community—are now in the sights of Florida’s senior senator.
“Faith, family, community—teach us who we are and what we’re here for,” Sen. Marco Rubio, R.-Fla., calls out in a new video, juxtaposing some of the most stark contrasts ever seen between the American Left and Right. Older video clips of Americans from every background singing, marching, and praying are contrasted with those of more recent LGBTQ+ parades, pro-abortion rallies, and news coverage of violent pro-Hamas protests.
Unlike many political videos delivered amid the presidential election season that we observe every four years, making bland statements about the economy and the border, Rubio appears to be throwing a spotlight from his office on the stark divide between the two opposing political movements and ideological foundations beckoning to an exhausted and weary country battered by calls to abandon “ancient ideas.”
These classic institutions “are the ones who teach us who we are and what we’re here for,” Rubio intoned, “but ties like these pose a threat to the Left, which insists that relationships exist only to affirm fleeting feelings and identities.”
That charge isn’t without warrant, as public school officials and liberal activists around the country have spent the past several years and millions of dollars attempting to separate children from their parents, encouraging children to confide in those outside their “unsupportive” families.
Rubio asserted that “the Left claims the only idea worth believing is its changing definition of ‘equity.’” That contrasts sharply with an image of Vice President Kamala Harris, who in a January 2023 speech created her own definitions for the words “equality” and “equity,” drawing wide criticism.
Equality is when the teacher gives every student the same test
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) January 20, 2023
Equity is when the teacher gives every student the same mark
Here’s our VP explaining that: pic.twitter.com/GC0xe7pK08
“Faith in woke ideology cannot replace faith in the Almighty God,” Rubio said. “Government programs and bureaucrats cannot stand in for family, and political echo chambers on social media are no match for real community.”
Rubio’s assertion is not only correct, it’s a timely message Americans have shown they are drawn to. Favorability toward the Biden administration has plummeted sharply as a country that was told it was going to experience “unity” and “a return to normal” received instead crisis and devastation in the economy, at the border, and on the world stage.
If other conservatives continue pushing messages like those in Rubio’s video, this could be a turning point for American society. A return to celebrating faith, family, and community as essential to the success of the United States would provide a far better foundation for growth as the Left’s fearmongering and guilt trips over these institutions no longer appear to hold voters in their sway.
The post EXCLUSIVE: Sen. Rubio’s Killer Video Blow to the Left’s Depressive Values appeared first on The Daily Signal.
Democrats' House Majority PAC is planning to dump $100 million into advertising about killing unborn babies via abortion.
The post Report: Democrat PAC Plans $100M Abortion Blitz to Take House in November appeared first on Breitbart.
Sen. Thomas Pressly introduced the bill after his sister's husband secretly tried to abort her baby multiple times using abortion pills.
The post Louisiana Governor Makes Forcing Abortion Pills on Pregnant Women a Crime appeared first on Breitbart.
Governor Tim Walz (D-MN) said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union" that on abortion access, Minnesota is an "island of decency" surrounded by states enacting versions of “The Handmaid's Tale.”
The post MN Gov. Walz Says State Is an ‘Island of Decency’ Surrounded by Handmaid’s Tale appeared first on Breitbart.
Hillary Clinton blamed the fact that female voters abandoned her 2016 presidential campaign on her not being "perfect" in a recent interview.
The post Hillary Clinton Blames Sexism for 2016 Loss: Donald Trump Won Because He Is A Man appeared first on Breitbart.
Voters worry more about Joe Biden's inflationary and open border policies than Donald Trump's abortion policy, per a poll.
The post Poll: Joe Biden’s Rising Costs, Open Border More Worrisome than Donald Trump’s Abortion Policy appeared first on Breitbart.
An eighth pro-life activist was sentenced on Wednesday under the Freedom of Access the Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act and "conspiracy against rights" for an abortion clinic protest in Washington, DC, in October 2020.
The post Pro-Life Grandmother Sentenced to 24 Months in Prison for 2020 D.C. Abortion Clinic Protest appeared first on Breitbart.
Pro-life activist Heather Idoni received a sentence of 24 months in prison on Wednesday, convicted of federal conspiracy against rights and Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act charges brought by the Justice Department.
Idoni, 59, will spend two years in prison for trying to stop abortions from taking place at a Washington, D.C., area abortion clinic on Oct. 20, 2020. She is mother to 15 children, according to LifeSite news, five of whom are her biological children and 10 of whom she and her husband reportedly adopted from Ukraine.
She told The Epoch Times that she expects to die in prison.
Her sentencing is part of the DOJ’s focus on enforcing the FACE Act against pro-life activists since the June 2022 overturn of Roe v. Wade. Led by Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, the DOJ has charged dozens of pro-life activists for attempting to stop women from aborting their unborn babies.
Idoni is one of several pro-life activists sentenced to prison time in connection to the 2020 incident: pro-life activist Lauren Handy received 57 months in prison, John Hinshaw 21 months, WIlliam Goodman 27 months, Jonathan Darnel 34 months, Herb Geraghty 27 months, and Joan Bell 27 months .
“Federal law is clear: using force, threatening to use force or physically obstructing access to reproductive health care is unlawful,” Clarke said in a release announcing Idoni’s sentence. “People have a First Amendment right to communicate their views but they do not have the right to use chains, locks and obstruction to prevent access to reproductive health care facilities.”
“The Justice Department will continue to protect both patients seeking reproductive health services and providers of those services,” she added.
The DOJ releases on the topic do not include the word “abortion,” but rather use the phrasing “reproductive health.”
BREAKING? Heather Idoni has been sentenced to 24 months in federal prison despite her lawyer begging for home detention due to Heather’s serious health issues.
— PAAU (@PAAUNOW) May 22, 2024
Justice was NOT served today. Free Heather Idoni!
Earlier this month, Republican New Jersey Rep. Chris Smith called on the U.S. Marshals and the Bureau of Prisons to provide proper care to Idoni and fellow pro-life activist Jean Marshall following reports that Idoni had not received proper medical treatment while in the custody of the U.S. Marshals following a stroke.
?Rep Chris Smith has written a letter to the directors of the US Marshals and the BOP demanding proper medical care for Rescuers Jean Marshall and Heather Idonihttps://t.co/VZhFLjpiBj pic.twitter.com/KOQJlVapTT
— PAAU (@PAAUNOW) May 16, 2024
Critics have accused President Joe Biden and the DOJ of weaponizing the FACE Act against pro-lifers while failing to charge pro-abortion criminals for the hundreds of attacks on pregnancy resource centers since the May 2022 leak of the draft Supreme Court opinion indicating Roe would soon be overturned.
Some, among them Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, have called for the repeal of the FACE Act, arguing that it serves no purpose but to target pro-life activists.
“The Biden administration is using the FACE Act to give pro-life activists and senior citizens lengthy prison terms for nonviolent offenses and protests—all while turning a blind eye to the violence, arson, and riots conducted on behalf of ‘approved’ leftist causes,” Lee told The Daily Signal earlier this month.
“Unequal enforcement of the law is a violation of the law,” he added, “and men and women who try to expose the horrors of abortion are being unjustly persecuted for their motivations.”
The enforcement of the FACE Act is led by Clarke, who, following a report from The Daily Signal, recently admitted that she hid an arrest for a violent incident, and its subsequent expungement, from investigators when she was confirmed to her Justice Department post.
On Monday, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit on Monday against seven pro-life activists and two pro-life organizations alleging that the pro-life organizations, Citizens for a Pro Life Society and Red Rose Rescue, as well as activists Laura Gies, Lauren Handy, Clara McDonald, Monica Miller, Christopher Moscinski, Jay Smith, and Audrey Whipple violated the FACE Act when they sought to stop abortions from taking place at Ohio abortion clinics.
The DOJ’s complaint seeks “compensatory damages, monetary penalties and injunctive relief as provided by the FACE Act.”
Martin Cannon, senior counsel with the Thomas More Society, said in a statement this week that “hardly one week has passed since Lauren Handy was sentenced to 57 months in federal prison, and the Biden Department of Justice is already coming after her again using the FACE Act.”
“‘Red Rose Rescues’ are peaceful events where participants counsel outside the abortion business or walk in and sit with pregnant mothers in abortionists’ waiting rooms, giving them red roses and offering them the help and assistance they need to choose life—in the exact moment when they’re in dire need of compassionate support,” he explained. “These are not threatening or intimidating actions that violate the FACE Act, despite the caricature that the DOJ would like the public to believe.”
The post DOJ Puts Pro-Life Grandmother Behind Bars for Trying to Stop Abortions appeared first on The Daily Signal.
On Wednesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Biden Campaign Co-Chair Mitch Landrieu stated that President Joe Biden “trusts the women of America to make decisions about their reproductive health to them and Donald Trump wants to return it to the
The post Biden Co-Chair: Letting States Decide Abortion Like Letting Them Decide Slavery, Biden Doesn’t Believe in Restrictions appeared first on Breitbart.
Florida voters are more likely to support former President Donald Trump in the November presidential election — but a strong majority also say they would pass a proposed ballot measure that would enshrine a right to kill unborn babies via abortion in the state constitution, a poll found.
The post Poll: Florida Voters Favor Trump, Also Support Proposed Abortion Measure appeared first on Breitbart.
Former Maryland governor and Republican Senate candidate Larry Hogan (R) released a campaign ad in which he promised to codify Roe v. Wade if elected, to allow women to make their "own choice."
The post Maryland Republican Senate Candidate Larry Hogan Vows to Codify Roe Protections appeared first on Breitbart.
Following the announcement of prison sentences for pro-life activists last week, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit on Monday against seven pro-life activists and two pro-life organizations.
The DOJ’s lawsuit alleges that the pro-life organizations, Citizens for a Pro Life Society and Red Rose Rescue, as well as activists Laura Gies, Lauren Handy, Clara McDonald, Monica Miller, Christopher Moscinski, Jay Smith, and Audrey Whipple, violated the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act when they sought to stop abortions from taking place at Ohio abortion clinics.
Notably, the DOJ does not use the word “abortion,” but rather “reproductive health services”—except in a statement from U.S. Attorney Rebecca C. Lutzko for the Northern District of Ohio.
“Obstructing people from accessing reproductive health care and physically obstructing providers from offering it are unlawful,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, the head of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, said in a statement.
“Congress passed the FACE Act 30 years ago this month in response to acts of violence, threats of violence and physical obstruction at reproductive health clinics in our country,” she added. “The Civil Rights Division is committed to enforcing federal law to protect the rights of those who seek and those who provide access to reproductive health services.”
The DOJ’s complaint seeks “compensatory damages, monetary penalties and injunctive relief as provided by the FACE Act.”
Handy, one of the activists mentioned in the release, was sentenced to 57 months in prison for trying to stop abortions at a Washington, D.C., abortion clinic. Clarke similarly issued a statement last week celebrating news that Handy and six other pro-life activists would spend time in prison for attempting to stop abortions from taking place.
The FACE Act is a 1994 law that supposedly protects both abortion clinics and pregnancy resource centers, but has been heavily enforced by President Joe Biden’s DOJ against pro-lifers since the June 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade.
The enforcement of the FACE Act is led by Clarke, who, following a report from The Daily Signal, recently admitted that she hid an arrest and its subsequent expungement from investigators when she was confirmed to her Justice Department post.
The president’s critics have accused Biden and the DOJ of weaponizing the FACE Act against pro-lifers while failing to charge pro-abortion criminals for the hundreds of attacks on pregnancy resource centers since the May 2022 leak of the draft Supreme Court opinion indicating that Roe would soon thereafter be overturned.
Some, among them Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, have called for the repeal of the FACE Act, arguing that it serves no purpose but to target pro-life activists.
“The Biden administration is using the FACE Act to give pro-life activists and senior citizens lengthy prison terms for nonviolent offenses and protests—all while turning a blind eye to the violence, arson, and riots conducted on behalf of ‘approved’ leftist causes,” Lee told The Daily Signal in a Tuesday statement.
“Unequal enforcement of the law is a violation of the law,” he added, “and men and women who try to expose the horrors of abortion are being unjustly persecuted for their motivations.”
The post Biden DOJ Ramps Up War on Pro-Lifers With Lawsuit appeared first on The Daily Signal.
The Defense Department undercounted the number of abortions that it authorized between 2016 and 2020, new data shows.
Following a lawsuit from the Oversight Project, a division of The Heritage Foundation, the Department of Defense said that it had identified a total of 77 abortions performed in military medical treatment facilities (MTFs) during the four-year period between 2016 and 2020. (Heritage founded The Daily Signal in 2014.)
That number includes 17 abortions that had previously not been included in the DOD’s figures.
The babies aborted were either the children of a service member or of the service member’s dependents. Eighteen of the abortions were tied to the Air Force, 28 to the Army, four to the Marines, and 27 to the Navy.
In 2021, the DOD authorized 14 abortions of unborn babies throughout the military—bringing the total number of abortions that the DOD authorized between 2016 and 2021 up to 91.
The Defense Department explained the undercounting by saying in a report shared with the Oversight Project that it began updating its methodology counting the abortions it authorizes in 2021.
“As a result, a yearlong effort, involving data analysts and women’s health subject matter experts, began in early 2021 to review and update the methodology for collection of data related to performance of abortions in military medical treatment facilities (MTFs),” the DOD explained. “The updated methodology identified, and corrected, inadvertent underreporting of authorized abortions.”
Some of the DOD’s methodology updates include developing a new definition of abortion: the “termination” of an unborn baby’s life “that would otherwise result in a live birth.” This new definition does not include the removal of ectopic or molar pregnancies, both of which are nonviable pregnancies. It also does not include miscarriages.
The new methodology also included both active-duty members and their dependents (such as their daughters) who aborted their babies at a military medical treatment facility.
“The methodology utilized for this updated report will be the standard for future reports, in order to ensure consistent methodology and understanding, and will be annually reviewed for new medical or coding updates for processes or procedures,” the report noted. “Additional actions will be identified as necessary to ensure accurate reporting consistent with this methodology.”
The Oversight Project initially sent a Freedom of Information Act request to the DOD a few weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in the Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling.
The lawsuit sought information on whether the abortions DOD was authorizing were “Hyde Amendment-compliant ‘covered’ abortions, meaning if they were performed if the life of the mother was at risk or if the unborn child is result of rape or incest,” Oversight senior investigative counsel Roman Jankowski told The Daily Signal.
“We also requested all records regarding the number of ‘covered’ abortions that are the result of an act of rape and incest that resulted in some type of prosecution under the Uniform Code of Military Justice,” he added. “The DOD did not respond to our FOIA request, forcing the Oversight Project to sue in federal court. These records only provide a partial picture of abortions covered by the DOD, and the Oversight Project will continue to update this as additional records are released.”
The DOD did not immediately respond to requests for comment for this article.
In October 2022, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin released a memorandum for senior Pentagon leadership on “ensuring access to reproductive health care.” That memorandum announced that the Defense Department would establish “travel and transportation allowances for service members and their dependents … to facilitate official travel to access non-covered reproductive health care that is unavailable within the local area of a service member’s permanent duty station.”
The move was a direct response to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the memo said. It claimed that funding abortion travel would be done in accordance with federal law, but Republicans noted at the time that funding travel and transportation to get abortions through the DOD would “in and of itself violate federal law” and contradict the Defense Department’s “past recognition, interpretation, and implementation of this law.”
“Congress has clearly and consistently acted to prevent the U.S. military from funding elective abortion procedures and services necessitated by those procedures, and DOD has acknowledged and complied with the law,” the Republicans said in 2022 in a letter first reported by The Daily Signal. “We are appalled by the flagrant disregard for the law expressed by the Department in this memorandum.”
And DOD spokesman Charlie Dietz confirmed to The Daily Signal in October 2022 that “if the dependent of a service member lives in a state where abortion access is restricted, the DOD will cover their travel and transportation costs to a location where they can legally receive the care.”
Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., blocked hundreds of military promotions for more than 10 months as pushback to the Pentagon policy promoting abortion, saying that until the policy was changed, he would not approve any military promotions, arguing that the policy is illegal and violates the Hyde Amendment. The Hyde Amendment is a measure dating back to the 1970s that prohibits federal taxpayer funding of most abortions.
The Alabama lawmaker, who received heavy criticism from his Democratic colleagues, ended his holds in December. Tuberville had also come under fire from some GOP senators, who called on him to give up his effort and allow the promotions to move forward despite the Pentagon’s unchanged pro-abortion policy.
But other leaders, including Ryan Williams, president and publisher of The Claremont Review of Books and of The American Mind; Terry Schilling, president of the American Principles Project; and Kevin Roberts, president of The Heritage Foundation, praised Tuberville for his commitment to stand against the Pentagon’s pro-abortion policy, saying that his hold “on military promotions over the Pentagon’s unjust decision to fund abortion tourism is a righteous manifestation of the Senate’s responsibility to scrutinize military leadership.”
The post EXCLUSIVE: Defense Department Admits to Undercounting Abortions It Authorized appeared first on The Daily Signal.
Officials in South Dakota and Colorado certified proposed amendments that would enshrine the right to abortion in their state constitutions.
The post Proposed Abortion Amendments Qualify for Ballots in Colorado, South Dakota appeared first on Breitbart.
Left-wing activists in Nevada submitted signatures for a ballot measure that would enshrine the right to abortion in the state constitution.
The post Left-Wing Activists in Nevada Submit Signatures for Abortion Ballot Measure appeared first on Breitbart.
A federal Justice Department attorney expressed concerns to a Michigan judge about conservative media coverage suggesting that President Joe Biden’s administration is persecuting Christians and pro-lifers for their beliefs.
The discussion took place during a March pre-trial conference in USA v. Zastrow, in which the federal government brought Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act charges against eight pro-life individuals who tried to stop abortions of unborn babies from taking place at Michigan abortion clinics.
Those pro-life activists are Calvin Zastrow, Eva Zastrow, Chester Gallagher, Heather Idoni, Caroline Davis, Joel Curry, Justin Phillips, and Eva Edl (a communist death camp survivor who recently spoke with The Daily Signal).
The FACE Act is a 1994 law that prohibits individuals from obstructing the entrances of both abortion clinics and pregnancy resource centers, although it has been heavily enforced by Biden’s DOJ against pro-lifers since the June 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade.
During the pre-trial motion hearing, according to a transcript obtained by The Daily Signal, DOJ attorney Laura-Kate Bernstein raised concerns that “there’s a great deal of press about this case and the case in Nashville recently.” Bernstein was referring to a case in Tennessee where six pro-lifers were praying outside of an abortion clinic in 2021 and were charged with FACE Act violations.
Bernstein did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“Where?” questioned Judge Matthew Leitman. “I haven’t seen any.”
Bernstein explained that she was referring to online media “like Mike Huckabee’s show or Laura Ingraham’s show, and those sorts of sources, and some written sources, too, in which at least one of the defense attorneys is making very acerbic statements about the government’s case and the legitimacy of the laws at stake, and that the Biden regime is persecuting Christians.”
WATCH:
“My concern is one of the jury pool,” she continued. “My concern is that as these national media reach more and more people, including people in the district, that they may be tainted with a preconceived notion of the Biden regime’s persecution of Christians and be unable to try the case as neutral jurors.”
The DOJ attorney said that she was not asking the court to do “something in particular,” but then told the judge that it is the court’s “affirmative, constitutional duty to minimize the effects of prejudicial pretrial publicity.”
Leitman, after asking for clarification on her question, noted that he could ask the jurors whether they had read anything about the case. But he said that Bernstein’s question seemed to be rooted in “important political speech.”
“It seems to me that your first statement, the Biden administration is persecuting Christians … that’s pretty core, important political speech, whether you agree with it or not,” the judge said. “I mean, I’d be hard pressed to tell somebody not to say that.”
The DOJ attorney then pushed back, saying she was referring to interviews in which the pro-lifer’s attorney said that “this case is a war on pro-lifers, that the Department of Justices is using the FACE Act as a weapon against pro-lifers,” or that “the clients are victims of political persecution.”
She also pushed back against the idea that “there’s a two-tier justice system, one for friends of the administration who go free and one for people who are on the wrong spiritual side of the administration.”
“There’s also extremely inflammatory language undermining the legitimacy of the laws to be implied in this case, that you’ve already ruled on—the constitutionality of it—whether reproductive health care includes abortion, as the statue defines it,” she continued. “And because the court has this affirmative, constitutional duty, we wanted to bring it to your attention.”
Bernstein then asked the judge to admonish Thomas More Society attorney Steve Crampton “about speaking about this case in inflammatory and acerbic ways that might taint the jury pool.”
“This isn’t about trying to, you know, interfere with any of his First Amendment rights,” she followed up, noting that Crampton is “of course” free to speak about his clients. “It’s about trying to protect the due process rights in this trial and the government’s right and the public’s right to a fair trial.”
Crampton clarified to the court that Bernstein was referring to Tennessee pro-life activist Paul Vaughn’s interview on the “Mike Huckabee Show,” in which Vaughn made such comments “only after the jury verdict” was entered in his case.
In January, a federal jury convicted Vaughn and five other defendants of a felony conspiracy against rights and a FACE Act offense for trying to stop abortions from taking place at a Mount Juliet, Tennessee, abortion clinic in March 2021.
BREAKING: Six pro-life activists were just found guilty in federal court after being prosecuted by Biden's DOJ under the FACE Act for protesting outside a Nashville abortion clinic.
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) January 30, 2024
Here's a snippet of the protest, which occurred on March 5, 2021.
For the crime of praying and… pic.twitter.com/UPzZvtZebM
“Any reference to United States against Zastrow and this case were, at best, minimal to nonexistent,” the Thomas More Society attorney said. “So I think the government, perhaps, is overreacting to the press coverage of the Nashville case. Nobody’s called any press conference regarding this case, and we certainly have no intention of doing so.”
This week, seven pro-life defendants have been sentenced to prison time on DOJ FACE Act charges related to their attempts to stop abortions from taking place at a Washington, D.C., abortion clinic. That abortion clinic is run by Cesare Santangelo, an abortionist who has been accused of allowing babies to die if they survive his botched abortions.
The District of Columbia does not have laws restricting abortion.
The DOJ said in a release Wednesday: “Lauren Handy was sentenced to 57 months in prison, John Hinshaw was sentenced to 21 months in prison, and William Goodman was sentenced to 27 months in prison,” adding that “Jonathan Darnel was sentenced to 34 months in prison, Herb Geraghty was sentenced to 27 months in prison, Jean Marshall was sentenced to 24 months in prison, and Joan Bell was sentenced to 27 months in prison.”
Those efforts are led by Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, the head of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, who just admitted, following a report from The Daily Signal, that she hid an arrest and its subsequent expungement from investigators when she was confirmed by the Senate to her Justice Department post.
“Violence has no place in our national discourse on reproductive health. Using force, threatening to use force, or physically obstructing access to reproductive health care is unlawful,” said Clarke in a statement accompanying this week’s DOJ release.
“As we mark the 30th anniversary of the FACE Act, it’s important that we not lose sight of the history of violence against reproductive health care providers, including the murder of Dr. David Gunn in Florida—tragic and horrific events that led to passage of the law,” she added. “The Justice Department will continue to protect both patients seeking reproductive health services and providers of those services. We will hold accountable those who seek to interfere with access to reproductive health services in our country.”
The post EXCLUSIVE: DOJ Attorney Expressed Concerns About Conservative Media Coverage of Biden Admin Persecuting Christians, Pro-Lifers appeared first on The Daily Signal.
The Justice Department’s Kristen Clarke issued a statement this week celebrating news that seven pro-life activists would spend time in prison for attempting to stop abortions from taking place.
Clarke, who heads the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division and is responsible for enforcing the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, painted the pro-life activists as violent radicals in her remarks: “Violence has no place in our national discourse on reproductive health.”
The activists’ actions were nonviolent, and the DOJ’s release on the matter even notes that they “passively” resisted “their anticipated arrests.”
“Using force, threatening to use force or physically obstructing access to reproductive health care is unlawful,” she added, before referring to the 1993 murder of a Florida abortionist. “As we mark the 30th anniversary of the FACE Act, it’s important that we not lose sight of the history of violence against reproductive health care providers, including the murder of Dr. David Gunn in Florida—tragic and horrific events that led to passage of the law.”
The FACE Act is a 1994 law that supposedly protects both abortion clinics and pregnancy resource centers, but has been heavily enforced by President Joe Biden’s DOJ against pro-lifers since the June 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade.
“The Justice Department will continue to protect both patients seeking reproductive health services and providers of those services,” the DOJ official concluded. “We will hold accountable those who seek to interfere with access to reproductive health services in our country.”
Lauren Handy is the pro-life activist who received the longest sentence. She will spend 57 months in prison and was the first person sentenced for violating the FACE Act.
The enforcement of the FACE Act is led by Clarke, who, following a report from The Daily Signal, recently admitted that she hid an arrest and its subsequent expungement from investigators when she was confirmed to her Justice Department post.
The president’s critics have accused Biden and the DOJ of weaponizing the FACE Act against pro-lifers while failing to charge pro-abortion criminals for the hundreds of attacks on pregnancy resource centers since the May 2022 leak of the draft Supreme Court opinion indicating Roe would soon be overturned.
Some, among them Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, have called for the repeal of the FACE Act, arguing that it serves no purpose but to target pro-life activists.
“The Biden administration is using the FACE Act to give pro-life activists and senior citizens lengthy prison terms for nonviolent offenses and protests—all while turning a blind eye to the violence, arson, and riots conducted on behalf of ‘approved’ leftist causes,” Lee told The Daily Signal in a Tuesday statement.
“Unequal enforcement of the law is a violation of the law,” he added, “and men and women who try to expose the horrors of abortion are being unjustly persecuted for their motivations.”
The DOJ’s release on the seven pro-lifers who were sentenced to prison time this week describes how the pro-life activists, motivated by a desire to protect unborn babies from abortion, planned a “blockade” at Washington Surgi-Clinic in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of Washington, D.C. The pro-life activists describe this type of activity as a “rescue,” hoping to stop mothers from aborting their unborn.
Under the FACE Act, such activity is considered a crime. The FACE Act prohibits use of force, obstruction, or property damage intended to interfere with “reproductive health care services.” Since 2022, the year the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the Justice Department has hit at least 40 pro-life activists with FACE-related charges at five different rescues or blockades.
The DOJ describes the D.C. event as a “clinic incursion,” noting that “the defendants met with other co-conspirators to plan their crime, which included making a fake patient appointment to ensure the group’s entry into the clinic, using chains and locks to barricade the facility and passively resisting their anticipated arrests to prolong the blockade.”
“The clinic invasion was advertised on social media as a ‘historic’ event that was live-streamed on Facebook,” the DOJ said “The defendants’ forced entry into the clinic at the outset of the invasion resulted in injury to a clinic nurse. During the blockade, one patient had to climb through a receptionist window to access the clinic, while another laid in the hallway outside of the clinic in physical distress, unable to gain access to the clinic.”
The case was investigated by the FBI’s Washington Field Office. Assistant Director in Charge David Sundberg pointed to the matter as evidence that “the FBI and our judicial system will not tolerate the obstruction of civil rights.”
“The FBI will continue to investigate FACE Act violations in all jurisdictions, so patients and providers can exercise their right to receive or provide lawful reproductive health care without the threat of violence or intimidation,” he added.
The post DOJ’s Kristen Clarke Celebrates Prison Time for Pro-Life Activists appeared first on The Daily Signal.
Seven pro-life activists were sentenced to years in federal prison on Tuesday and Wednesday for protesting at the Washington Surgi-Clinic in Washington, DC, in 2020, an abortion clinic infamous for late-term abortions.
The post More Pro-Life Activists Sentenced to Years Behind Bars, Including Veteran, Two Women in Their 70s appeared first on Breitbart.
FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL: Republican Utah Sen. Mike Lee accused President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice on Tuesday of “unjustly” persecuting pro-life activists exposing the “horrors of abortion.”
“The Biden administration is using the FACE Act to give pro-life activists and senior citizens lengthy prison terms for non-violent offenses and protests—all while turning a blind eye to the violence, arson, and riots conducted on behalf of ‘approved’ leftist causes,” Lee told The Daily Signal in a Tuesday statement.
The senator added: “Unequal enforcement of the law is a violation of the law, and men and women who try to expose the horrors of abortion are being unjustly persecuted for their motivations.”
Lee’s comments come after news that pro-life activist Lauren Handy has been sentenced on DOJ charges to almost five years in prison for attempting to stop abortions of unborn babies from taking place at a Washington, D.C., abortion clinic.
Handy will spend 57 months in prison and is the first person sentenced for violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, a 1994 law that supposedly protects both abortion clinics and pregnancy resource centers, but has been heavily enforced by Biden’s DOJ against pro-lifers since the June 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Those efforts are led by Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, the head of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, who recently admitted following a report from The Daily Signal that she hid an arrest and its subsequent expungement from investigators when she was confirmed to her Justice Department post.
The president’s critics have accused Biden and the DOJ of weaponizing the FACE Act against pro-lifers while failing to charge pro-abortion criminals for the hundreds of attacks on pregnancy resource centers since the May 2022 leak of the draft Supreme Court opinion indicating Roe would soon be overturned.
Some, among them Lee and Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, have called for the repeal of the FACE Act.
“Today’s outrageous 57-month sentence for a progressive pro-life activist is a stark reminder: Biden’s DOJ is fully weaponized against pro-life American citizens, and they are using the FACE Act to do it,” said Roy in a statement following Handy’s sentence. “House Republicans should defund the DOJ weaponization, repeal the FACE Act, and stand up for the freedoms that we campaign on.”
Handy is being represented by lawyers with the Thomas More Society, which said Tuesday that it is preparing to proceed with an appeal seeking to overturn her conviction and challenge the constitutionality of the FACE Act.
The post Mike Lee: Biden DOJ ‘Unjustly’ Persecuting Pro-Lifers, ‘Turning a Blind Eye’ to Leftist Crime appeared first on The Daily Signal.
Handy was sentenced to four years and nine months behind bars, as well as three years of supervised release, on Tuesday.
The post Pro-Life Activist Lauren Handy Sentenced to Nearly 5 Years in Prison for Abortion Clinic Protest appeared first on Breitbart.
Bishop Thomas Paprocki said that Joe Biden makes a “mockery of our Catholic faith” by using sacred symbols while promoting abortion.
The post Illinois Bishop: Biden Makes ‘Mockery’ of Catholic Faith by Touting Abortion appeared first on Breitbart.
Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker addressed the graduates at Benedictine College on Saturday and blasted President Joe Biden for his pro-abortion stance while liberally dispensing sound Christian advice.
The post Super Bowl Champion Harrison Butker Blasts Biden on Abortion, Tells Male Grads to be ‘Unapologetic in Your Masculinity’ appeared first on Breitbart.
During an interview aired on Monday’s “PBS NewsHour,” Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) stated that abortion “is the most profound kitchen table issue that we have. It’s not separate from inflation. It’s not separate from the economy.”
The post Dem Rep. Slotkin: Abortion Is ‘Most Profound Kitchen Table Issue’ ‘It’s Not Separate from Inflation’ and Economy appeared first on Breitbart.
Over half of GOP voters and those who lean Republican say, "Human life begins at conception, so an embryo is a person with rights."
The post Poll: More Than Half of Republicans Agree ‘An Embryo Is a Person with Rights’ appeared first on Breitbart.
In an interview with Politico, Johnson pointed to Donald Trump's official abortion position, which Trump revealed in April.
The post House Speaker Mike Johnson Says No to Federal Abortion Restrictions appeared first on Breitbart.
The following is an updated version of a column originally published in December 2022.
One of the bestselling books of the 1970s was “The Peter Principle,” a business management book by Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull.
The book’s premise was that employees get promoted based on their performance in their previous jobs until they are ultimately elevated to a position in which they’re incompetent, since skills and success in one position don’t necessarily ensure success in the next. “In a hierarchy,” Peter explained, “every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.”
If “The Peter Principle” were published today, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre would be a case study in the phenomenon, now called “failing upward.” In Jean-Pierre’s case, that’s reflected in her work for the short-lived Democratic presidential campaigns of John Edwards in 2004 and Martin O’Malley in 2016, and now as the chief spokeswoman for the Biden administration. On Monday, she will mark her second anniversary in that role.
In recent weeks, however, with the 2024 election campaign shifting into high gear, there have been well-sourced reports that high-ranking figures in the Biden administration are not-so-subtly seeking to push Jean-Pierre out of the role—for which she was never qualified to begin with. Many of the same administration figures reportedly behind those efforts to oust her are, not surprisingly, denying the accuracy of the reports.
The New York Post quoted a source as saying the high-ranking administration figures “‘were trying to find Karine a graceful exit’ because of the ugly optics of removing her against her will,” especially because she thinks she’s doing a good job. (One face-saving exit strategy was to offer her the presidency of EMILY’s List, an abortion rights group.)
But as a textbook example of an affirmative-action hire, Jean-Pierre appears not to be going anywhere. An administration so thoroughly wedded to so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion is, in this case, now finding it difficult to divorce itself from DEI. (More on that below.)
The most glaring evidence that Jean-Pierre, 49, has been promoted to her level of incompetence as White House press secretary is her near-total dependence on a binder full of administration talking points, which she often reads from directly at her daily news briefings to the White House press corps.
It’s so bad that Fox News commentator Jesse Watters has taken to referring to her derisively as “Binder,” and it’s so, well, cringeworthy that other critics deliberately mispronounce “Karine” as “Cringe.”
Just as an aside, recall how 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney was ridiculed mercilessly in the liberal media for saying during the second presidential debate that he had “binders full of women.” That was his awkward way of referring to files of résumés of women he would consider for staffing his administration were he to win the election. Many of the talking heads’ “binder” jokes snarkily suggested that the squeaky-clean Romney was engaged in some form of BDSM with those women.
It’s standard operating procedure for a press secretary to have notes for ready reference. It’s quite another thing to stare down at them and read those notes all but verbatim.
As far as we know, none of the talking heads who ridiculed Romney has ever mentioned—much less made fun of—Jean-Pierre’s near-complete dependence on her press-briefing binders. Nor have they satirized her oft-repeated deflection—“I don’t have anything”—when she doesn’t have answers to questions for which she’s unprepared.
Nor have the liberal media (or the late-night TV comics) noted, much less lampooned, how Jean-Pierre has mispronounced or mangled words and phrases in the course of her press briefings.
On Dec. 13, 2022, Jean-Pierre touted “bicarmel” support in Congress for the so-called Respect for Marriage Act. “Bicarmel, bipartisan support was had for this piece of legislation,” she said.
But this was no one-off slip of the tongue: She used the term “bicarmel” three times to describe it in the course of the half-hour press briefing. It should have been “bicameral,” of course; meaning, support in both chambers of Congress.
The official White House transcript of the briefing was dishonestly corrected in all three instances to “bicameral” with no indication that it was not an accurate reflection of what was actually said.
On Nov. 28, 2022, in congratulating three Americans who had won Nobel Prizes in chemistry, physics, and economics, she mispronounced “Nobel” five times in 40 seconds as “noble.”
Two months to the day earlier, on Sept. 28, Jean-Pierre said that as part of Vice President Kamala Harris’ then-pending trip to South Korea, the veep would visit the Demilitarized Zone between the two Koreas. Jean-Pierre helpfully noted that it had been “nearly 70 years since the Korean ‘armtis’”—not to be confused with the Korean armistice.
Three weeks before that, on Sept. 6, Jean-Pierre conflated a Russian natural gas pipeline with an upscale American department store chain. She accused Russia of causing an energy crisis in Europe by shutting down its Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which she referred to as the “Nordstrom 1” pipeline.
One can only imagine how former President Donald Trump’s press secretaries, Sarah Huckabee Sanders and later Kayleigh McEnany, would have been pilloried by the liberal White House press corps had they made those sorts of repeated verbal gaffes.
One reason Jean-Pierre still has the high-visibility press secretary’s job, to which she was elevated on May 13, 2022, despite all of the gaffes, is because President Joe Biden is legendary for his own innumerable flubs and miscues.
“White House communications staff has had to correct President Joe Biden’s public remarks at least 148 times since the beginning of 2024, a review of official White House transcripts shows,” the Daily Caller reported April 29. Biden couldn’t very well hold Jean-Pierre to a higher standard, could he?
But the real reason Jean-Pierre remains in her post today is because of the identity politics to which the Biden administration and the Democratic Party have sworn undying allegiance. She is immune from criticism—and from reassignment to a less high-profile post—only because she checks all of the boxes of identity-politics “intersectionality” as the first black, first LGBTQ, and first immigrant White House press secretary.
In the Biden administration, Jean-Pierre demonstrates daily that meritocracy is an afterthought—if it’s thought of at all. The moral of this story: Live by DEI, die by it.
The post Biden Admin in a DEI Bind(er) of Its Own Making, Stuck With Incompetent Jean-Pierre appeared first on The Daily Signal.
A federal judge in New York threw out a proposed abortion and gender identity amendment that was set to appear on the November ballot.
The post Judge Tosses New York Abortion, Gender Identity Amendment from November Ballot appeared first on Breitbart.
Missouri Gov. Mike Parson (R) signed a bill on Thursday to ban abortion providers and their affiliates from receiving reimbursements from Medicaid.
The post Missouri Gov. Parson Signs Bill Banning Taxpayer Funds to Abortion Providers appeared first on Breitbart.
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he believes abortion, even at full term, should be a decision made by the mother.
The post Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: Full-Term Abortion Should Be Left Up to the Mother appeared first on Breitbart.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Thursday on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that any woman with self-respect should vote for President Joe Biden.
The post Hillary Clinton: Any Woman with Self-Respect Should Vote for Biden appeared first on Breitbart.
Minnesota Democrats introduced an amendment to enshrine the right to abortion and transgender drugs and surgeries into the state Constitution.
The post Minnesota Democrats Introduce Amendment to Block Ban on Abortion, Sex Changes appeared first on Breitbart.
CLAIM: Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently claimed that if former President Donald Trump is reelected, "all" women would "live in a state where abortion" was restricted or banned.
The post Fact Check: Hillary Clinton Claims if Trump Is Reelected, Abortion Will Be Banned in U.S. appeared first on Breitbart.
The Chicago Teachers Union is demanding a $50 billion contract with provisions including free abortion services, cash to migrants, LGBTQ concessions, and a big hike in pay all despite falling student enrollment and worsening student proficiency rates.
The post Chicago Teachers $50B Contract Demands Abortion, Migrant Freebies appeared first on Breitbart.
Senator Mark Kelly (R-AZ) said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" that he supported eliminating the filibuster to codify abortion rights.
The post Dem Sen. Kelly: I Support Eliminating the Filibuster to Codify Abortion Rights appeared first on Breitbart.
Fewer Germans are getting married and having children, but the population continues to soar thanks to immigration.
The post Births Fall in Germany, Meanwhile Migrant Worker Arrivals Continues to Soar appeared first on Breitbart.
U.S. Catholics now lean toward former President Donald Trump over President Joe Biden, according to a Pew Research poll, released on Tuesday.
The post Poll: Catholics Now Lean Toward Donald Trump over Joe Biden appeared first on Breitbart.
Democrat Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs quickly signed a bill on Thursday repealing an 1864 law that bans nearly all abortions.
The post Democrat Arizona Governor Signs Bill Repealing 1864 Near-Total Abortion Ban appeared first on Breitbart.
FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL: A group of conservative leaders is calling on the head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, Kristen Clarke, to resign from her leadership position following an explosive report from The Daily Signal.
“The American people have lost trust in your ability to lead the Civil Rights Division,” reads a letter to Clarke, signed by Advancing American Freedom Executive Director Paul Teller, American Accountability Foundation President Tom Jones, Students for Life President Kristan Hawkins, and CatholicVote President Brian Burch. “We request that you resign immediately.”
The Daily Signal published a report on Tuesday highlighting evidence that Clarke had not disclosed a 2006 arrest and subsequent expungement during her 2021 nomination to the DOJ—and then explicitly denied ever having been arrested to Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton.
Clarke has not responded to requests for comment from The Daily Signal, though the DOJ acknowledged receipt of these requests. She did speak to CNN on Wednesday, however, confirming that she did not disclose the arrest and expungement and alleging that her ex-husband Reginald Avery domestically abused her. He denied this in a statement to The Daily Signal.
The letter to Clarke from conservative leaders, sent Friday to the DOJ official, repeatedly references The Daily Signal’s reporting and attaches a copy of the Tuesday report itself. The letter also points to Clarke’s enforcement of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act against pro-life activists.
“The American people deserve a Civil Rights Division at the U.S. Department of Justice led with honesty and integrity,” the letter says. “Since taking over the Civil Rights Division, you have weaponized the Department of Justice by wielding the FACE Act against pro-life Americans in an unprecedented manner—even while standing idly by as churches and pro-life pregnancy centers are vandalized, and Jewish students are unable to attend class on college campuses.”
Jones, one of the signers of the letter, began digging into Clarke’s background during her nomination process and spoke to Avery around the same time, as The Daily Signal previously reported. Avery told Jones at the time that Clarke attacked him with a knife, slicing his finger to the bone, during a domestic dispute in July 2006.
“The accusations against Kristen Clarke of lying to Congress and domestic violence are deeply troubling,” Jones told The Daily Signal on Friday. “Clearly she does not possess the character or integrity to be in any position of power. She must resign now.”
On Thursday evening, the New York Post Editorial Board similarly called on Clarke to step down in an editorial titled: “Kristen Clarke lied and must step down from the DOJ — NOW.”
“Clarke’s now arguing that because the arrest was expunged, she wasn’t required to disclose it to lawmakers,” the New York Post Editorial Board wrote. “That’s precisely the kind of razor-sharp logic that top Biden appointees are known for.”
“Then again,” the board continued. “Clarke’s the same dunderhead who muffed a major question about First Amendment litigation last year, claiming in a congressional hearing to be totally unaware of the lawsuit by the state of Missouri against the president over government efforts against ‘disinformation’ — a huge civil rights issue where Team Biden had lost and was appealing to the Supreme Court.”
The New York Post Editorial Board added: “Her defense now is beyond pathetic. She told an unambiguous lie to Congress. Was she thinking she’d never get caught, or that if she did, her political connections would protect her?”
CNN published Clarke’s allegations in a report headlined “DOJ civil rights leader says she was a victim of abuse in extraordinary statement.” That report is drawing accusations from conservative media that the outlet sought to curry favor with President Joe Biden’s DOJ through its framing.
“CNN propagandist Hannah Rabinowitz was asked by DOJ to spread this info op and she complied, hiding the explosive journalism which provoked it,” tweeted Federalist Editor-in-Chief Mollie Hemingway.
“Amazing,” noted The Washington Free Beacon’s Chuck Ross. “After @MaryMargOlohan reports that DOJ’s Kristen Clarke lied about being arrested, Clarke runs to CNN with a claim that she lied only because she was the victim of domestic abuse. And CNN spins it with the typical ‘conservatives pounce’ framing.”
Clarke did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
The Daily Signal previously reported that Clarke, who oversees investigations into violations of the FACE Act, has used FACE to charge dozens of pro-life individuals since the overturn of Roe v. Wade. This includes Mark Houck, a Catholic father of seven arrested at gunpoint by the FBI and charged with violating FACE in September 2022 (a jury found Houck was not guilty in January 2023, and the DOJ has not commented on this verdict publicly).
Enacted in 1994, the FACE Act prohibits threats of force, obstruction, and property damage intended to interfere with reproductive health care services. It applies not only to abortion clinics, but also to pro-life pregnancy centers and houses of worship.
Though Clarke is the helm of the DOJ’s FACE Act enforcements, she is a vocal abortion proponent who has denounced pro-life pregnancy centers, as The Washington Free Beacon’s Ross previously reported.
The DOJ has charged only five pro-abortion individuals with violating the FACE Act when they attacked pro-life pregnancy centers, even though hundreds of pregnancy centers and Catholic churches have been attacked since May 2022, when the Supreme Court’s draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization was leaked, indicating Roe v. Wade would soon be overturned.
DOJ’s Civil Rights Division has charged zero individuals with FACE for attacking Catholic churches, though it has charged other individuals with hate crimes with defacing a synagogue with neo-Nazi symbols and attempting to burn down a church that planned to host drag show events.
The post EXCLUSIVE: Conservative Leaders Call on DOJ’s Kristen Clarke to Resign Following Daily Signal Report appeared first on The Daily Signal.
Florida health regulators released two emergency rules on Thursday to combat the "deeply dishonest scare campaign and disinformation being perpetuated by the media, the Biden Administration, and advocacy groups," now that the state's six-week abortion restriction is in effect.
The post Florida Issues Rules for Life-Threatening Emergencies Under Abortion Restrictions appeared first on Breitbart.
President Joe Biden is the last person who should be quoting scripture, social media users said on Thursday after Biden posted a message for the National Day of Prayer, referencing scripture while spending the last few days promoting the murder of unborn children.
The post Biden Roasted for National Day of Prayer Message: ‘You’re the Last Person Who Should Be Quoting Scripture’ appeared first on Breitbart.
Pro-abortion activists said their proposed amendment to enshrine the right to abortion in the South Dakota constitution has enough signatures.
The post South Dakota Activists Say Abortion Measure Has Enough Signatures to Qualify for November Ballot appeared first on Breitbart.
Two Republicans voted with Democrats in the Arizona Senate on Wednesday to repeal the state's 1864 near-total abortion restriction.
The post Arizona Senate Votes to Repeal 1864 Near-Total Abortion Ban appeared first on Breitbart.
Vice President Kamala Harris is continuing her "Fight for Reproductive Freedoms" tour in Florida on Wednesday — the same day a six-week abortion restriction is set to take effect in the state.
The post VP Kamala Harris to Give Abortion Speech in Florida as Six-Week Restriction Takes Effect appeared first on Breitbart.
In a guest column this week for Variety, Meena Harris used the new Broadway production of Cabaret as an opportunity to keep abortion front and center in the broader cultural conversation.
The post Kamala Harris’ Niece Meena Uses Broadway’s ‘Cabaret’ to Push Abortion appeared first on Breitbart.
A law that restricts abortions at six weeks of pregnancy — which is often when a fetal heartbeat can be detected — is set to take effect.
The post Florida’s Six-Week Abortion Restriction to Take Effect on Wednesday appeared first on Breitbart.
FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL: Before becoming one of the Justice Department’s top leaders, Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke was allegedly involved in a violent domestic dispute, according to court documents, records, and text messages—an incident that ended in her arrest and was ultimately expunged. During her Senate confirmation, Clarke specifically denied ever having been arrested for or accused of committing a violent crime.
Clarke was nominated by President-elect Joe Biden on Jan. 7, 2021, and later confirmed by the U.S. Senate on May 25, 2021, to lead the DOJ’s “crown jewel,” as former Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. described the Civil Rights Division.
Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris celebrated Clarke as the first black woman to head the Civil Rights Division, promising she would focus on fighting voter suppression and hate crimes “across the country.”
During her confirmation, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., asked then-nominee Clarke: “Since becoming a legal adult, have you ever been arrested for or accused of committing a violent crime against any person?”
“No,” she responded, according to responses she submitted under oath to “Questions for the Record” from U.S. senators.
Messages as well as records obtained and authenticated by The Daily Signal indicate that Clarke may have been less than forthcoming with this statement.
Clarke’s ex-husband, Reginald Avery, alleged to the American Accountability Foundation’s Tom Jones in 2021 that Clarke attacked him with a knife, deeply slicing his finger to the bone, on the night of July 4, 2006, while they were married and living in Maryland.
According to messages and documents reviewed by The Daily Signal, police arrested Clarke that night. She did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
Court records obtained by The Daily Signal show that a criminal case against Clarke was initiated in the District Court of Maryland for Prince George’s County, but on Oct. 17, 2006, the Maryland state attorney entered a request of “nolle prosequi” in the case, which effectively dismissed the charge without trial.
Approximately a year-and-a-half later, Clarke sought an “Order for Expungement of Police and Court Records” in the same case.
A document obtained by The Daily Signal shows that the district court granted that order in January 2008. The document specifically orders “expungement of police records pertaining to [Clarke’s] arrest, detention, or confinement” on or about July 5, 2006, by a “law enforcement officer of the Prince George’s County Police.”
Citing the “True Test” stamp on the expungement order, an official at the clerk’s office for the District Court of Maryland for Prince George’s County confirmed the authenticity of the expungement order to The Daily Signal.
“That’s a real document,” the official said.
Court records show that Avery and Clarke finalized their contentious divorce in 2009. Clarke had served as a trial attorney for the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division until April 2006, several months before the incident.
When the July 4, 2006, incident occurred, Clarke was leading the left-wing National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Legal Defense Fund’s voting and election efforts.
It is not immediately clear whether Clarke was legally required to disclose her arrest during her nomination process, though this seems to generally be considered the prudential course of action to take during such a process.
According to Maryland law, Criminal Procedure §10-109, “Disclosure of expunged information about criminal charges in an application, interview, or other means may not be required” by an employer or educational institution of a person who is applying for employment or admission or by a “unit, official, or employee of the State or a political subdivision of the State of a person who applies for a license, permit, registration, or governmental service.”
That Maryland code also says that a person does not need to reveal information about an expunged charge when answering a question concerning a criminal charge that did not result in a conviction.
However, the nonprofit law firm Maryland Legal Aid notes that it is probably prudent to disclose expungement records when applying for certain types of jobs that require a security clearance, such as government or military jobs, since these types of employers are still going to be able to see the criminal charges in a person’s background.
Mark Robbins, who served as general counsel of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management under former Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump, believes that a DOJ nominee should indeed disclose an expunged arrest when specifically asked.
Robbins noted that though the expungement processes are typically determined by state law, presidential nominees for Senate confirmation go through a political process. There are two sets of paperwork relevant to a nomination, he said: the first from the White House for clearance before nomination, and the second from the relevant Senate committee.
Both of these sets contain questions about criminal and civil legal actions, Robbins said, as well as an open-ended question to the effect of: “Is there anything else that could even unfairly be seen as a potential hurdle to confirmation?”
“An arrest with an expungement likely has a background and explanation,” he said. “Why not disclose it? It isn’t particularly relevant what the legal consequence of expungement is. The issue is the political consequence of an arrest becoming public during or after the confirmation process, thus embarrassing the administration and Senate.”
Robbins concluded: “In my service as general counsel at two federal agencies, if a nominee asked me whether to disclose an arrest and expungement, I certainly would advise to either disclose in the paperwork with an explanation, or at the very least, note for the record that you would like to discuss this personally with someone in the White House or on the Senate committee staff.”
According to the Center for Presidential Transition, every person hired for a federal job is asked to complete a background check, and nominees are asked to complete either a “Questionnaire for National Security Positions,” the SF-86, or a “Questionnaire for Public Trust Positions,” an SF 85P.
The SF-86, for example, specifically says that applicants must report information “regardless of whether the record in your case has been sealed, expunged, or otherwise stricken from the court record, or the charge was dismissed” (though it notes that applicants don’t need to ‘report convictions under the Federal Controlled Substances Act for which the court issued an expungement order under the authority of 21 U.S.C. 844 or 18 U.S.C. 3607.'”
Every presidential administration has its own version of another form that supplements the SF-86—the SF-86 Supplement, according to the Center for Presidential Transition. That form includes questions about whether “you or your spouse” have been “the subject of any civil or criminal case, administrative proceeding, or government investigation, other than a minor traffic incident.”
It also asks: “With as much detail as possible, please provide any other information, including information about other members of your family, which could suggest a conflict of interest, be a possible source of embarrassment, or be used to coerce or blackmail you.”
Clarke, as a nominee for a DOJ position, would have also been required to fill out a “Questionnaire for non-judicial nominees” from the Senate Judiciary Committee—questionnaires submitted before the hearing.
This would include a confidential section, accessible to the Senate Judiciary Committee staff and members, in which Clarke could have revealed the expunged information.
A source with prior experience in the confirmation process told The Daily Signal that it is unlikely Clarke disclosed the arrest and expungement in the confidential portion. If she had disclosed such an arrest, the source said, members would have likely taken the opportunity to request one-on-one meetings with her to discuss, to hold a closed hearing, or to ask her to discuss the matter publicly.
In 2022, for example, Republicans brought up 6th Circuit nominee Andre Mathis’ three traffic tickets and his “failure to appear in court” related to “extended periods of driving without a license”—information they learned about during his vetting process, as Republican Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley said at the time.
“Mr Mathis has agreed to discuss this issue publicly and that made possible his appearance today and I thank him for agreeing to do that,” Grassley said, according to a transcript of the hearing, acknowledging that Mathis had agreed to making the tickets public.
“It just speaks to how the process works–when something comes up in the FBI’s background investigation, it’s shared with all the members on the committee and if they want to ask about it either the nominee waives confidentiality or we have a closed portion of the hearing,” a source close to Clarke’s confirmation process explained to The Daily Signal.
A copy of Clarke’s questionnaire obtained by The Daily Signal does not contain any information or questions about possible arrests. The Daily Signal was not able to obtain a copy of the confidential questionnaire.
Multiple sources familiar with the confirmation process told The Daily Signal that they do not believe Clarke disclosed the arrest, not only because they would have been aware of the matter, but also given the nature of Cotton’s written questions, submitted after her confirmation hearing but before the committee voted on her nomination.
“It’s strange beyond strange that Clarke wouldn’t reveal this in the first place,” said appellate litigator Judd Stone, former Texas solicitor general of Texas and former chief of staff to Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. “Just deeply strange … if you reveal it, and it turns out you can’t get through committee, then they tell you quietly that you can’t proceed with the nomination, it doesn’t go out to the press, you don’t get tarred and feathered, and you go back to what you’re doing.”
“I can’t imagine a Republican nomination getting away with this,” he added.
Jones, head of the American Accountability Foundation, began digging into Clarke’s background during her Senate confirmation process. He reached out to Avery as part of his investigation, and text messages between Avery and Jones illustrate the alleged events of the July 4, 2006, incident.
“I was seeing another woman,” Avery shared in the May 2021 text message exchange. “She was angry. Attacked me with a knife. I instinctively grabbed it. As I said earlier, I’m not blameless.”
“That’s the story,” Avery insisted. “That’s what happened. She went to jail.”
Avery confirmed to The Daily Signal that his text conversations with Jones accurately represent what took place that night, including that he did not ultimately press charges and that he was not contacted by federal authorities about the incident. He declined to comment further.
Prince George’s County Police Department records show that the department was called on nine different occasions by someone at Avery’s and Clarke’s Upper Marlboro, Maryland, household between May 2003 and December 2007.
Seven of those calls were for a “threat” or some type of domestic violence, but most were cleared without a report. The July 4, 2006, call was made by “Mr. Reginald” (Avery’s first name) and accompanied by a 760 code, according to a mainframe print-out from Prince George’s County computer-aided dispatch system obtained by The Daily Signal.
That 760 code is the department’s clearance code for “arrest,” the Prince George County Police Department confirmed.
That call was not cleared for four hours, and Avery maintains it was Clarke who was arrested. Clarke has not addressed the matter, though given multiple opportunities to respond.
The DOJ official’s ex-husband also shared with Jones that on the night of the incident, he called 911 due to his injury and the “cops came because [his] finger was cut off.” (Avery clarified to The Daily Signal that the finger was sliced to the bone, not cut off.) Police allegedly decided to arrest Clarke, and Avery said he went to the emergency room in Bowie, Maryland, for the injury. He does not have photos of the injury.
Jones and Avery speculated via 2021 text messages about why Clarke would hide the arrest: “I assume she just thinks she won’t get caught,” Jones queried, to which Avery responded, “Yes, the arrogance has always been there. But I don’t understand lying on a federal application.”
Staffers who worked on Senate Judiciary Committee during Clarke’s confirmation say that, while they looked into rumors of an arrest and contacted Avery, they never had access to the expungement order or charge dismissal notice. The Daily Signal is reporting first on the existence of both documents.
Avery refused to speak to the Senate staffers who reached out to him in 2021, a Senate source familiar with Clarke’s confirmation process told The Daily Signal. Staff felt they could not just sling allegations at Clarke without more evidence, the source said, but Cotton’s question to Clarke about violent crime was a direct result of the numerous Republican judiciary committee staff discussions surrounding Clarke, Jones’ findings, and the July 4, 2006, incident.
Jones questioned why Avery’s story was not thoroughly examined during the Senate’s review of Clarke’s record and why Clarke’s ex-husband was never contacted by federal officials during the confirmation process.
Jones also published some of his findings online, in which he noted that “congressional staff” confirmed that Avery had never been contacted by the FBI. The FBI declined to comment on the matter to The Daily Signal.
“Speaking to an ex-spouse is some of the most basic type of investigations that one should do when vetting a senior official,” Jones told The Daily Signal.
The DOJ did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
Clarke did face scrutiny during her nomination process for remarks and social media posts made before her DOJ role, such as calling Alliance Defending Freedom a “hate group” and Liberty University a “fundamentalist Christian school.” She also said that those protesting Dr. Anthony Fauci should be “publicly identified and named, barred from treatment at any public hospital if/when they fall ill and denied coverage under their insurance.”
Clarke similarly criticized Republican politicians from Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, to former President Donald Trump. She supported the allegations of Christine Blasey Ford, submitted testimony to the U.S. Senate that Amy Coney Barrett was unfit to serve as a justice because she would likely rule to overturn Roe v. Wade, critiqued pro-life laws and courts that upheld them, and called a law protecting Down syndrome babies “draconian.”
Anti-choice activists are intensifying their work to end abortion.
— Kristen Clarke (@KristenClarkeJD) July 20, 2018
Conservative evangelical and Catholic groups are pouring money into the #Kavanaugh nomination battle.
Make no mistake — A vote for Kavanaugh, is a vote to overrturn #roevswade https://t.co/uo172qM1aj
Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who now heads the Tucker Carlson Network, ran multiple segments highlighting Clarke’s comments about racial superiority as well as her role in organizing a 1994 event while at Harvard University that hosted a professor who accused Jews of persecuting black people. Clarke, who was the president of Harvard’s Black Students Association, has since said it “was a mistake” to host the professor.
At the time of the event, Clarke defended professor Tony Martin when he received backlash, writing, “Professor Martin is an intelligent, well-versed Black intellectual who bases his information on indisputable fact.”
The Daily Signal previously reported that Clarke, who oversees investigations into violations of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, has used FACE to charge dozens of pro-life individuals since the overturn of Roe v. Wade. This includes Mark Houck, a Catholic father of seven arrested at gunpoint by the FBI and charged with violating FACE in September 2022 (a jury found Houck was not guilty in January 2023, and the DOJ has not commented on this verdict publicly).
Enacted in 1994, the FACE Act prohibits threats of force, obstruction and property damage intended to interfere with reproductive health care services. It applies not only to abortion clinics, but also to pro-life pregnancy centers and houses of worship.
Though Clarke is the helm of the DOJ’s FACE Act enforcements, she is a vocal abortion proponent who has denounced pro-life pregnancy centers, as the Washington Free Beacon’s Chuck Ross previously reported.
The DOJ has charged only five pro-abortion individuals with violating the FACE Act when they attacked pro-life pregnancy centers, even though hundreds of pregnancy centers and Catholic churches have been attacked since May 2022, when the Supreme Court’s draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization was leaked, indicating Roe v. Wade would soon be overturned.
DOJ’s Civil Rights Division has charged zero individuals with FACE for attacking Catholic churches, though it has charged other individuals with hate crimes with defacing a synagogue with neo-Nazi symbols and attempting to burn down a church that planned to host drag show events.
The post EXCLUSIVE: DOJ’s Kristen Clarke Testified She Was Never Arrested. Court Records and Text Messages Indicate She Was. appeared first on The Daily Signal.
The left-wing Arabella Advisors network has raked in more money than either of the two major political parties and affects almost every element of public policy and elections, argues Scott Walter, president of the Capital Research Center, a Washington-based investigative think tank.
Walter’s new book “Arabella: The Dark Money Network of Leftist Billionaires Secretly Transforming America” shows that in the 2020 election cycle, Arabella Advisors’ nonprofits took in $2.4 billion. That’s $1 billion more than the combined fundraising of the Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee.
That amount rose to $3 billion in the 2022 election cycle, Walter says. Moreover, he adds, nothing on the Right comes close to competing.
“Arabella does not discriminate. It is working on arcane regulatory issues … but it also is running Facebook ads, attacking certain congressional candidates and boosting others. It plays in environmental issues. It plays in abortion issues. It plays in election policy,” Walter says on “The Daily Signal Podcast.”
Walter is set to testify Tuesday before the House Natural Resources Committee about what he calls “left-wing dark money [used] to influence environmental policy.”
“Arabella also continues to be very active in the environmental policy area in all sorts of ways,” he adds.
Arabella-backed organizations have been involved in battles over abortion and Supreme Court nominations and advocated that biological males compete in women’s sports.
Walter’s book details how two Arabella-aligned groups, the Center for Secure and Modern Elections and the Institute for Responsive Government, are involved in shaping election policy at the local level.
He notes that an Arabella-sponsored group funded by billionaire financier George Soros helped formulate the Biden administration’s recent change in Title IX policy to make it easier for biological males to compete in girls’ scholastic sports.
“That was plotted through a highly secretive group in the Arabella network, funded entirely with Soros money,” Walter said. “Governing for Impact, which they started in 2019, two years before the Biden administration was even sworn in. And they worked with Harvard Law School folks to do very sophisticated legal strategy memos of how to overturn dozens of regulations in the federal government, the most famous being Title IX.”
What’s differentiates Arabella from other major donors on the Left is the level of secrecy, Walter says. The network is more secretive than most nonprofits financed by Soros and his family, he says.
“We have tracked the institutional donors, and we can tell you that for almost all of the Arabella nonprofits, Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund, which provides donor-advised funds to wealthy people, is the largest,” Walter said. He added, “Other really big donors to the Arabella network have [included Microsoft co-founder] Bill Gates. He is one of the largest, mostly through his foundation. [Facebook founder] Mark Zuckerberg has given tens of millions, mostly for criminal justice reform—quote unquote—[that results in] letting criminals back on the streets.”
A spokesperson for Arabella Advisors didn’t respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment for this report.
Listen to Walter outline Arabella’s reach in a discussion of his book in the podcast below:
The post Arabella Network’s Leftist ‘Dark Money’ Influence Expanding, Author Reveals appeared first on The Daily Signal.
It was Scott who first referred to the sacramental view of abortion, some years ago now. Abortion (much like slavery over the course of the 19th century) went from being a regrettable but sometimes unavoidable evil to being a positive good–indeed, these days, the noblest good to which political life can aspire.
To see this perverse attitude in full flower, you almost have to live in Minnesota. Minnesota’s lieutenant governor, Peggy Flanagan, is a far-left Indian activist despite being, to all appearances, Irish-American. (To be fair, she has much more Indian heritage than, say, Elizabeth Warren.) Flanagan actually tweeted this:
I filled out my brackets based on whether those schools are located in a state that protects access to abortion care.
By this measurement, it’s only fair that Minnesota didn’t make the tournament because they’d have been a favorite for the title. pic.twitter.com/nFQ5FKwFHG
— Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan (@LtGovFlanagan) March 21, 2024
So she had UConn facing Gonzaga in the final. Who wants to be the first to tell her?
One more thing–Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, liked Flanagan’s bracket tweet.
Vaunce News 
