The DOJ Just Fired 4 Officials for Prosecuting Violent, Anti-Abortion Extremists
Nothing like a DOJ working hard to get justice off our streets.
Photo: Getty Images AbortionPolitics
Ever since he took on the role of acting attorney general, Todd Blanche has wasted no time continuing Pam Bondi’s legacy of using Trump’s Justice Department to bludgeon civil liberties. As such, I imagine he’s still basking in the fact that he got the AG gig (for now) by giving one of the worst criminals top-tier princess treatment. So it makes sense that on Tuesday, his DOJ released a new report accusing the Biden administration of unfairly prosecuting violent anti-abortion protesters, and fired four officials. Nothing like a DOJ working hard to get justice off our streets.
The nearly 900-page report claims that, based on 700,000 internal records, Biden’s DOJ misused the FACE (Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances) Act—a policy that was enacted in the 1990s to prohibit anti-abortion protesters from blocking entry to abortion clinics—to target Christians.
The “DOJ’s firing of these prosecutors for doing their job throws acid on the rule of law, fairness, and justice,” Nancy Northup, president & CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, told Jezebel in a statement. “In pardoning convicted extremists, refusing to fairly enforce the FACE Act, and firing the lawyers who did, the Trump Administration is giving a green light to terrorize abortion clinics and patients.”
The report is the first published by the DOJ’s “Weaponization Working Group,” which was created by Bondi in February to “eradicate anti-Christian bias” in the department—albeit very obviously written by hypocrites. Per Anna Bower, a senior editor at Lawfare, many of the report’s listed violations include conduct that happened under the first Trump administration. Speaking in an accompanying statement on Tuesday, Blanche announced, “This department will not tolerate a two-tiered system of justice.” OK!
A day ahead of the report’s release, news of the four DOJ firings broke, with various sources confirming that the timing was intentionally dramatic. One of the dismissed prosecutors was Sanjay Patel, a longtime lawyer at the Civil Rights Division, who specialized in enforcing the FACE Act and reportedly led the team in enforcing it under Biden. Patel was placed on administrative leave last month, though it was never revealed why.
The four dismissals brought more concerns to various employees still at the DOJ, who’ve been seeing a spate of their colleagues being fired or pushed out because their views misalign with Trump’s.
The individuals referenced here are adjudicated terrorists.
They were found guilty of conspiring to use force against their own government to prevent the peaceful transfer of power.
A conservative, Trump-appointed judge applied terrorism enhancements to their sentences. https://t.co/BTuJ41Ydqb
— Anna Bower (@AnnaBower) April 15, 2026
Shortly after he returned to office, Trump pardoned 23 extremist activists who’d been convicted for illegally barricading abortion clinics and, in some cases, attacking patients and clinic staff. One of them had also, in 2022, stolen five aborted fetuses from a clinic and illegally kept them in her home—and then tried to use photos of them during her trial to paint abortion clinics in a bad light.
In recent months, the pardoned extremists—among others—have reportedly been remobilizing to go back to terrorizing abortion clinics. And, well, if getting pardons emboldened them, there’s no telling what the punishment of their prosecutors will do.
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