Report Proves to be Waste of Government Resources in Search of Crimes that Did Not Occur, Misuse of Office of Legal Policy Resources
Washington, D.C. — Following the U.S. Department of Justice’s release of a 900-page report, which is a partisan effort to discredit career prosecutors and civil servants who have spent decades enforcing the nation’s criminal civil rights laws, Democracy Forward’s Red Line for Civil Rights has released a comprehensive analysis of the section focused on prosecutions for violations of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act of 1994. The analysis was originally published at Just Security.
The report presents itself as an investigation into alleged bias in federal law enforcement and as the basis to terminate career civil servants for doing their job of dutifully enforcing laws passed by Congress to address serious violence. Instead, it cherry picks through hundreds of deliberative internal emails, mischaracterizes the factual record, and disregards multiple court rulings and jury verdicts in districts across the country—all as part of a review led by political actors.
“There seems to be no bottom to the lows to which political leadership in the department fall. This sensationalized, false, and cherry-picked report, being used to justify the targeting of civil servants, comes up short of facts and evidence – which DOJ leaders might remember are critical to making an argument,” said Skye Perryman, President and CEO of Democracy Forward. “This report purports to criticize unbalanced justice under the law, the very behavior that this administration has undertaken with pardons of people convicted by juries of their peers. It is this administration’s politicized enforcement of the FACE Act, not the last, which threatens foundational democratic principles of neutrality and equal treatment under the law. We will continue using every legal tool available to uphold the rule of law.”
Instead of using career investigators and staff in the Office of the Inspector General or Office of Professional Responsibility, this report was written by the Department’s Office of Legal Policy, a step that limited the investigative process and the due process of those civil servants targeted by political leadership.
“Many of the convictions now being questioned were secured through grand jury indictments and unanimous jury verdicts after full judicial review. Those outcomes reflect evidence tested in court, not political bias,” said Regan Rush, Director of Red Line for Civil Rights at Democracy Forward. “This report attempts to justify treating the same unlawful conduct differently depending on the target. Billed as restoring fairness and neutrality, the current administration’s FACE Act enforcement does the opposite. It institutionalizes selective enforcement of federal law.”
The FACE Act was passed in 1994 with bipartisan support in response to a rise in violent and extreme tactics used by anti-abortion activists, including large-scale clinic blockades and the murder and attempted murder of physicians. For decades, the FACE Act has protected access to reproductive healthcare by safeguarding patients, providers, and facilities from violence, threats of violence, vandalism, and physical obstruction. That includes not only clinics that provide abortions, but also what are known as crisis pregnancy centers, which are run by those seeking to talk women out of abortions.
The false and misleading claims are not new. In January 2025, President Trump issued pardons to 24 individuals convicted of criminal FACE Act violations and the Civil Rights Division dismissed pending civil enforcement actions. Department leadership also adopted a differential enforcement standard, pursuing FACE Act allegations when directed at places of religious worship or crisis pregnancy centers that counsel against abortions, but declining to pursue the same unlawful conduct when directed at clinics that provide abortions. Since then, the Department has enforced the FACE Act pursuant to this two-tiered approach. The report released today seeks to rewrite the historical record in an apparent attempt to justify those actions.
Taken together, the report’s conclusions rest on five central claims. Each fails when measured against the actual enforcement record. Access a full analysis at redlinecivilrights.org.
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Democracy Forward Foundation is a national legal organization that advances democracy and social progress through litigation, policy, public education, and regulatory engagement. For more information, please visit www.democracyforward.org.
