President Trump: Pardon the pro-lifers

When a new president takes office, his first few days are usually spent signing executive orders and memoranda vigorously exercising the powers of his new post and undoing the unhelpful parts of his predecessor’s term in office. Pardons are often saved for when a president exits office to take care of political friends and sympathetic cases on the way out the door and after the politics doesn’t matter anymore (as we saw with President Joe Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter Biden). President-elect Donald Trump should, as he often does, turn that approach on its head by issuing a big batch of pardons and commutations on Day One. Trump campaigned vigorously on the weaponization of the law by the Biden-Harris Department of Justice led by Attorney General Merrick Garland and can set a new course right from the start.

He should start with the pro-lifers who have been aggressively prosecuted under the Free Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. The Justice Department prosecuted dozens of pro-life protestors like Paul Vaughn, who, along with other pro-life advocates, preached and sang hymns at an abortion business in Mount Juliet, Tenn., while others blocked the door. For their actions, the advocates were convicted of a FACE Act violation and a felony count of conspiracy against rights. Vaughn received a sentence of three years of supervised release. The others could each face maximum sentences of 10-plus years in prison and fines of up to $260,000.

Alliance Defending Freedom reports that in 2022, the Justice Department brought no less than 26 cases under the FACE Act against pro-lifers, even as it brought zero cases for the vandalism of pro-life religious ministries during the summer of Dobbs.

We can also add to the list Eithan Haim, the Texas physician charged with violating federal health privacy laws when he released redacted files exposing the Texas Children’s Hospital’s false public statements about its ongoing transgender surgeries on children. He was recently indicted by the Justice Department and now faces up to 10 years in federal prison and a possible maximum fine of $250,000. Haim does not need a pardon but an order to the attorney general to immediately drop the case.

Another victim of the politicized Justice Department and FBI is my former colleague Brian Kelsey, who was a Republican state senator in Tennessee. Both the FBI and the Federal Election Commission closed investigations into alleged campaign finance violations during his failed run for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2016. But a new U.S. attorney reopened the case and filed charges just before the statute of limitations ran out—and right as Kelsey was ramping up to defend his state senate seat in a key district. He now faces 21 months in prison.

And, of course, President-elect Trump will likely be anxious to address any injustices associated with the prosecutions of protestors from Jan. 6, 2021. On Jan. 6, 2024, the Justice Department released a statistical update indicating that more than 1,200 people had been charged in connection with their actions that day. Though I expect that Trump will not be sympathetic to those who destroyed federal property or assaulted Capitol Police officers (nor should he be), the latter category accounts for less than half (452) of the total persons charged.

The U.S. House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government has unearthed other, less public harassment efforts by the Biden-Harris administration, like a broad-ranging Federal Trade Commission investigation into Elon Musk and X (formerly Twitter).

President-elect Trump should review all of these cases and others from the past four years to right any wrongs done by a weaponized Justice Department. Donald Trump knows from personal experience what it’s like to deal with a politically motivated prosecutor. He has run hard on the problem of lawfare and the politicization of the Justice Department and FBI. Reviewing these and similar cases and granting pardons, commutations, and other relief can be an easy win for pro-lifers and other allies through executive action on or shortly after Inauguration Day.