Republican Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan weighed in Tuesday on the FBI’s arrest of a pro-life father of seven, saying the dramatic arrest is “consistent with what our most recent whistleblower” has told Republicans about the FBI.
“It’s just a continuation of this political nature,” the Ohio congressman said in a phone interview with The Daily Signal. “Labeling everyone an extremist to satisfy the Biden narrative. And the latest victim, of course, is this family who gets the door kicked in with agents’ guns drawn, for a guy that local courts and police had said there was no no real case there at all.”
“Time after time we see this where they’re so aggressive in going after these, ‘extremist domestic violence’ cases all over the country,” Jordan added of President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice. “And that’s how they view people who are pro-life, showing up and praying in front of abortion clinics. They view them as extremists when obviously this family is just a good family.”
Mark Houck’s wife, Ryan-Marie Houck, told Life Site News that 25-30 FBI agents entered their home around 7 a.m. on Friday morning as their screaming and crying children watched from the top of the stairs. The agents were holding “big, huge rifles,” she said, “pointed at Mark and pointed at me and kind of pointed throughout the house.”
Authorities have charged Houck with violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, which criminalizes the use of force to intimidate or obstruct someone from getting or providing an abortion.
Houck “twice assaulted a man because he was a volunteer reproductive health care clinic escort” in October 2021, according to authorities. But a spokesperson for the family told The Daily Signal that Houck “was defending his son from a man who was verbally abusing his son.”
“He stepped between them and asked him to stop,” spokesman Brian Middleton said, adding that “the man continued to lean in and verbally abuse” and so “Mark extended his arms to get the assailant away from his son,” apparently resulting in the 72-year-old man’s fall.
On Tuesday, the father of seven plead not guilty to two counts, Fox News reported.
Jordan pointed to the slew of whistleblowers who have come forward accusing the Justice Department and FBI of corruption in recent months. The Houck family is the “latest victim” of the “overall political pressure at the Justice Department to label everyone a domestic violent extremist,” he added.
And the raid on Houck’s home was not proportionate to the crime he was accused of, Jordan said, reminding The Daily Signal that the state court had thrown out charges against Houck earlier this summer. But now he faces charges under the FACE Act.
“It makes no sense,” Jordan said. “But this is also consistent with what our most recent whistleblower has told us that they are using some heavy-handed tactics, whether or not warranted, on people that they’re going out to to investigate.”
According to a Catholic Vote tracker, at least 72 crisis pregnancy centers and at least 80 Catholic churches have been attacked or vandalized since the May leak of a draft opinion indicating that Roe v. Wade would soon be overturned.
But it does not appear that the Justice Department is prosecuting anyone in relation to these crimes under the FACE Act, which also includes safeguards for houses of worship, and the FBI has not responded to requests for comment from The Daily Signal.
Jordan, who has previously drawn attention to the attacks on pro-life centers on the House floor, emphasized to The Daily Signal that “this just shows the bias at the Justice Department.”
“If it’s something to do with satisfying this domestic violent extremism narrative, they’re going to be on it,” he added, saying that the political bias is “even to the point where we had this whistleblower tell us that they’re pulling agents off of child sex trafficking cases to focus on this political narrative and these [domestic violent extremism] cases.”
Asked if he would investigate the Houck case should Republicans get the majority, Jordan told The Daily Signal: “We are definitely going to do everything we can to do to get the truth and the facts to the American people about what’s been happening at their Justice Department, the Justice Department they pay for with their tax dollars. The Justice Department is supposed to be focused focus on equal treatment under the law. We are going to do everything we can to to highlight what exactly is going on there.”
Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the url or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.