The Department of Justice’s investigations and prosecutions of Christians during the Biden administration signal that the government discriminated against people based on their faith, according to a sweeping 200-page report released Thursday by the Trump DOJ.
“The Biden Administration generally tolerated religious beliefs that were privately held but zealously pursued actions to limit Christians’ ability to act in accordance with their faith,” the report found.
The document, released by a DOJ task force, serves as an internal deep dive into concerns critics have already publicly raised surrounding prosecutions of pro-life protesters, investigations into Catholics, the administration’s posture toward religious concerns with COVID-19 vaccines and more. The report contended that the Biden administration showed a pattern of making enforcement choices that de-prioritized religious liberty protections at the expense of Christians.
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“No American should live in fear that the federal government will punish them for their faith,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who chaired the task force, said in a statement. “As our report lays out, the Biden Administration’s actions devastated the lives of many Christian Americans. That devastation ended with President Trump. The Department of Justice will continue to expose bad actors who targeted Christians and work tirelessly to restore religious liberty for all Americans of faith.”
One little known detail revealed in the report found that federal government employees were systemically denied religious accommodation requests or subject to tedious processes when seeking exceptions to COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
“The Task Force found that during the COVID-19 period, federal agencies frequently subjected employees seeking religious accommodations to invasive scrutiny of their beliefs,” the report stated, saying the practice was at odds with court precedent requiring employers to “presume sincerity” of beliefs.
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Former Attorney General Merrick Garland’s emphasis on reproductive healthcare was another top focus of the report.
In the wake of the landmark Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, the Garland DOJ sought to prioritize access to abortion and to protect abortion clinics, while making weak attempts to engage with and protect faith-based pregnancy counseling centers that discourage abortion, the report found.
The task force summarized how the Biden DOJ aggressively pursued Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances violations at abortion clinics, especially amid heightened polarization of the abortion debate as the Supreme Court weighed the Dobbs decision.
The department frequently brought federal FACE Act charges against nonviolent pro-life protesters, including several elderly protesters, many of whom were found guilty of blocking doors to abortion clinics and later pardoned by Trump. Those prosecutions far outpaced charges brought against abortion advocates who targeted pregnancy counseling centers or churches, the report noted, despite the law being written to protect both types of facilities.
Internally, Biden DOJ Civil Rights Division attorneys “questioned whether to provide pregnancy resource centers with the same resources as abortion clinics, questioning whether these facilities fall under the FACE Act’s scope,” the report stated.
Republican lawmakers frequently confronted Garland over concerns about whether the DOJ’s actions disadvantaged Christians. During a House hearing in 2023, Garland, who is Jewish and frequently references his family fleeing religious persecution in Europe in the 20th century, became emotional about the accusation.
“The idea that someone with my family background would discriminate against any religion is so outrageous, so absurd,” Garland told lawmakers.
The report, drafted in response to Trump’s executive order called Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias, laid out corrective measures the DOJ has taken, including engaging with faith-based groups, holding hearings featuring alleged victims of anti-Christian bias, shifting law enforcement priorities and revising legal interpretations of court precedents.
Fox News Digital reached out to a Biden representative for comment.
