The FBI and Justice Department are putting their "full resources" into tracking and punishing attacks on pro-life pregnancy centers, Attorney Generral Merrick Garland claimed Wednesday.
Garland made the statement under questioning from Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday. Lee pressed Garland to explain why just two people had been charged with violence against pro-life groups despite more than 200 incidents being reported in the past year.
"You are right that there are many more prosecutions with respect to the blocking of abortion centers," Garland told Lee. "But that is generally because those actions are taken with photography at the time, during the daylight. Seeing the person who did it is quite easy."
"Those who are attacking pregnancy resource centers, which is a horrid thing to do, are doing this at night in the dark," Garland continued. "We have put full resources on this."
ZERO ARRESTS IN AT LEAST 17 JANE'S REVENGE ATTACKS ON PRO-LIFE ORGANIZATIONS
Garland went on to say that the FBI and DOJ have put out rewards for information regarding the attacks on pro-life groups, in addition to reaching out to the pro-life groups themselves.
In October, Garland's DOJ indicted 11 pro-life activists who investigators said blocked access to a Tennessee abortion clinic during a protest, saying they violated the FACE Act.
The activists, according to the indictment, organized an event blockading an abortion clinic near Nashville, Tennessee, earlier this year. The DOJ alleges the group physically prevented both employees of the clinic and at least one would-be patient from entering the building in early March. The FACE Act prohibits demonstrators from blocking access to abortion clinics.
The DOJ has still made no arrests in the at least 18 attacks on pro-life centers by the radical abortion group "Jane's Revenge," however.
Jane’s Revenge has claimed responsibility for at least 18 arson and vandalism attacks on crisis pregnancy centers and other faith-based organizations throughout the U.S. since the May 2022 leak of the Supreme Court draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade.
