Life advocate Lauren Handy is the most recent example, sentenced this week to almost five years in prison. She was found guilty of conspiracy against rights and for a Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act violation. Handy was among a group that participated in a demonstration at the Washington, D.C., abortion facility Surgi-Clinic.
The Biden administration offers no senior discounts. Among others sentenced this week were Joan Andrews Bell, 76, Jean Marshall, 74, and John Hinshaw, 69. Bell was sentenced to more than two years, Marshall for 24 months, Hinshaw for 21 months. Another septuagenarian – Paulette Harlow, 75 – awaits sentencing.
The DOJ said those sentenced "forcefully entered the clinic and set about blockading two clinic doors using their bodies, furniture, chains and ropes." In an appearance on Washington Watch Thursday, Cruz said the sentences are "utterly disgraceful."
"This is a pattern we've seen from the very beginning of the Biden administration. They have weaponized the Department of Justice," the Texas Republican told show host Tony Perkins.
Cruz said the Surgi-Clinic protests were peaceful and caused no harm to clinic employees or customers.
"They were not threatening violence. They were not engaged in violence. The Biden Department of Justice hates pro-life; so what they are saying is we're going to lock them up. I will say it's a travesty of justice," said the senator.
The Mark Houck story
Cruz noted that a jury saw through the intent when the administration first went down this path with Mark Houck, a recent U.S. House candidate in Pennsylvania's first district near Philadelphia. Houck was accused of FACE Act violations and could have spent up to 10 years in prison, but a jury returned a not guilty verdict within an hour.
"They showed up at Mark Houck's house at dawn with FBI agents and machine guns raised and arrested him in front of his seven children …. Thankfully when they brought [that case] to the jury, the jury threw it out within minutes and said this is ridiculous," Cruz said.
But all juries are different. "Tragically, with these pro-life protesters, the result was not that," Cruz lamented.
The Texas Republican pointed out the stark contrast between the Surgi-Clinic sentences and the DOJ's treatment of pro-Palestinian protests that began at New York's Columbia University a month ago and set off a nationwide trend.
"To the best of my knowledge, the U.S. Department of Justice has made zero arrests, has brought zero cases, and is not enforcing federal civil rights laws," Cruz offered.
Cruz said the Senate has seen "growing data" indicating foreign terrorist organizations and foreign communist government have helped fund the protests.
"Yet the Biden administration is AWOL because politically they side with the anti-Semites and the people who hate America on campus. So, they're not willing to enforce the law against them," he stated.
Cruz compared the administration's abuse of the DOJ to the situation he says his father faced when imprisoned in Cuba before fleeing to Texas in 1957.
"This is what Banana Republics do," Cruz exclaimed. "For over 200 years in our nation, we had never indicted a former president. In the past year, partisan Democrat prosecutors have done so not once, not twice, not three times, but four different times.
"They are using the justice system to attack … Donald Trump because they hate him personally," he continued. "But what they're really attacking is the American people. They're terrified the voters are going to re-elect Donald Trump."
A short list of examples
In Cruz's eyes, Joe Biden is simply abusing power to retain power. The two-term senator listed multiple examples of aggressive law enforcement or no enforcement at all depending on the administration's preferences:
- Trump prosecutions
- Pro-life prosecutions
- Failure to break up campus protests
- Failing to protect the homes of Supreme Court justices after their decision to overturn Roe v. Wade was leaked
Cruz commented on the latter example:
"Night after night after night, there were protesters who were furious at the Dobbs decision outside the homes of Supreme Court justices. There is a federal law that makes it a crime to protest at the home of a federal judge seeking to influence a decision. [But] Merrick Garland refuses to enforce the law. Why? Because he sides with the radicals.
"It's the same reason he won't enforce the law with the anti-Semitic protesters at Columbia and NYU and Yale and Harvard and Berkeley and all over the place."
