The Patriot Post® · FBI Raids, Arrests Peaceful Pro-Life Activist
It’s hard to think of an American institution that’s fallen harder faster than today’s FBI. And deservedly so.
Once held up and highly esteemed alongside our Armed Forces, the bureau is now something of a cellar-dweller, down there with the tax collectors and the trial lawyers. And we don’t see a correction coming anytime soon — at least not as long as the bureau keeps engaging in the sort of sickening thuggery we saw on Friday in the small Pennsylvania town of Kintnersville.
There, the home of author, pro-life activist, and father of seven Mark Houck was raided “by 25 to 30 armed FBI agents, who pounded on the door and yelled at the family to open it,” according to Houck’s wife, Ryan-Marie.
As she tells it, her husband opened the door after pleading with the FBI agents, “Please, I’m going to open the door, but, please, my children are in the home. I have seven babies in the house.” After entry, the agents pointed their firearms at the Houcks while sending the children upstairs. “The kids were all just screaming,” said Mrs. Houck. “It was all just very scary and traumatic.”
Ah, but there are two sides to every story, and an FBI spokesperson pushed back vigorously against the claim that “25 to 30 armed FBI agents” conducted the raid: “A senior FBI source told Fox News there may have been 15-20 agents at the scene, but denied 25 were there.”
No biggie then. Only 15-20 armed agents raided this nonviolent, non-threatening man’s home and terrorized his wife and children. For a moment there, we thought the bureau’s show of force might’ve been grotesquely excessive.
“I am hearing from people,” said former FBI Agent Chris Swecker. “My phone has exploded. [Those] who in the past have been big supporters of the FBI are fairly disgusted with what just happened.”
Let’s be clear about something: Houck isn’t one of those “violent extremists” Joe Biden and Merrick Garland keep prattling on about — you know, the isolated cases the FBI has been pulling from its endless January 6 investigation and artificially sprinkling around the country to create an illusion of violent extremism that’s aligned with the administration’s false, fake, phony, fraudulent narrative.
No, Mark Houck isn’t a domestic terrorist, isn’t a jihadist, isn’t a violent felon. He’s a 48-year-old husband and father of seven, and cofounder and president of The King’s Men, a Catholic ministry that aims to spiritually mentor young Catholic men. He’s a well-known pro-life author and “sidewalk counselor” committed to doing God’s work by driving two hours a day to pray and speak outside of abortion clinics in downtown Philly for as much as six to eight hours at a time. Sometimes, he’d take his 12-year-old son with him.
And his alleged crime? A violation of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances FACE Act. As columnist Hans von Spakovsky writes: “The federal indictment claims that almost a year ago, Houck ‘verbally confronted’ and ‘shoved’ an escort for an abortion patient ‘to the ground’ and ‘intentionally injured, intimidated and interfered’ with the escort.” Spakovsky continues:
What the indictment fails to mention, say Houck’s wife and a family spokesman, is that on multiple occasions this pro-abortion escort said “crude … inappropriate and disgusting things” to the Houcks’ son, such as “your dad’s a fag” and other vulgar slurs.
Houck kept telling the escort to stop harassing his son, they say, but the escort refused to stop and when the foul-mouthed vulgarian got too close to his son, Houck protected him by shoving the escort away. The escort fell down, but, according to Houck’s family, the only injury he suffered required “a Band-Aid on his finger.”
Moreover, the “victim’s” assault claim against Houck was so weak, so pathetic, that not only did Philly’s hard-left George Soros-funded DA, Larry Krasner, refuse to file misdemeanor charges, but even the escort’s civil lawsuit was thrown out of court.
This prompts an obvious question: What on earth is the FBI even doing with this, ahem, case?
Surely the bureau has better things to do, right? For example, tracking down, arresting, and prosecuting real criminals, real terrorists, like the ones who’ve been threatening and firebombing dozens of pro-life pregnancy centers around the country.
“The pro-abortion terror group ‘Jane’s Revenge,’” reports The Blaze, “began targeting pro-life institutions ahead of the Supreme Court’s June 24 ruling, which overturned Roe v. Wade. A post attributed to the group and published by so-called Abolition Media on June 14 stated, ‘Through attacking, we find joy.’ To date, the violent collective has taken credit for at least 18 of 100 attacks, some of which involved firebombings and resulted in injuries.”
So, through attacking peaceful pro-life activists and resources, these leftist domestic terrorists “find joy.” But we wonder: Through terrorizing these peaceful activists and failing to stop their violent attackers, does Joe Biden’s FBI also find joy?