The leaders of the pregnancy help center CompassCare in Buffalo, New York, were concerned they might face another attack amid court proceedings over access to abortion pills.
The Rev. Jim Harden, CompassCare CEO, contacted the FBI in February raising those concerns. He says the FBI failed to answer him.
“I asked the FBI,” Harden said, “if they were going to be issuing any kind of threat alert to Christian pro-life people and organizations, and whether or not they’re going to be adding protection, security protection to that judge [handling the abortion pill case]. They did not respond.”
On Wednesday, CompassCare was attacked for the second time within the past nine months.
Around 11:30 p.m. Wednesday, surveillance footage shows an individual wearing a hoodie walk up to the front of the pregnancy center and spray paint the word “Liars” over the CompassCare sign. The individual then turns and walks away back down the street.
“This fits the definitions of domestic terror,” Harden said, adding: “Those in the FBI and DOJ who refuse to treat it as such need to be fired and investigated.”
This was the second pro-abortion attack CompassCare has faced. In June, the radical pro-abortion group Jane’s Revenge took responsibility for firebombing the pro-life center and spray painting the words “Jane was here” on the side of the building.
The FACE Act, or the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, prohibits the intentional destruction or damage of reproductive health care facilities, which includes both abortion facilities and pregnancy centers.
President Joe Biden’s DOJ charged 26 pro-life activists with FACE Act violations in 2022, but did not charge any pro-abortion activist with FACE Act charges last year, despite Catholic Vote trackers reporting more than 100 apparent pro-abortion attacks on pro-life pregnancy resource centers and churches across the nation.
Harden joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to explain why he thinks Biden’s DOJ and the FBI have failed to take action against those who are attacking pro-life organizations and churches.
Listen to the podcast below or read the lightly edited transcript:
Virginia Allen: CompassCare CEO, the Rev. Jim Harden, joins us here today to explain what recently happened at his pregnancy center. Rev. Harden, thank you so much for your time today.
Jim Harden: Thanks for having me. It’s an honor to be with you again.
Allen: Late on Wednesday night, your building was vandalized for the second time in less than a year. Tell us what happened.
Harden: Yeah, so if I could back up: We actually notified the FBI on February 20th, February 20th, that we were concerned about increasing violence ahead of the U.S. [District Court] ruling that could overturn the FDA’s approval of chemical abortion drug mifepristone. We started to see some uptick in online chatter around it, and similar to what we saw on the lead up to the reversal of [Roe v. Wade] after the leak of the [Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision.]
I asked the FBI at that point if they were going to be issuing any kind of threat alert to Christian pro-life people in organizations, and whether or not they’re going to be adding protection, security protection to that judge. They did not respond. We started to see an increase of activity further last week, specifically around violent rhetoric. Even so far as we saw “Hanoi Jane” Fonda coming out on “The View” on Friday, essentially saying a solution to pro-life people would be to murder them.
A few hours later, Antifa Jane’s Revenge, Antifa violently vandalized a pregnancy center in Minneapolis, breaking the windows and putting graffiti, their signature graffiti threats, on the building saying, “If abortion isn’t safe, then neither are you.” Several hours after that, the Antifa Jane’s Revenge’s people showed up boldly in front of that particular facility with their black masks, et cetera, protesting again. The FBI and the police said they can’t find anybody related to that, but all they needed to do was take pictures of the protesters. And then we had the hearing.
The hearing happened on Wednesday with that particular court case, and it was leaked to The Washington Post that the judge was concerned about the increased threats, death threats to him, his family, and his court staff, and lead up to this particular hearing. So, that day, we were attacked again with vandalism. It was a typical kind of Jane’s Revenge graffiti scrawl splayed out over the entire sign, which said, “Liars.”
Now, this is a typical accusation that Antifa Jane’s Revenge uses against pro-life people. They insist that we’re providing misinformation, that we’re harming women, that we’re lying to them, and that we’re going to make them a permanent socioeconomic underclass by forcing them to have their babies, according to our Christian religious beliefs. Again, this is a typical kind of Maoist Antifa pattern that we’re seeing cropping up again.
So, I reached out to the FBI again [Thursday], asking them if they were going to issue any additional threat alerts like they did for the Jewish community in New Jersey on November 3rd. Again, they did not respond. They’re refusing to call this what it is. This is domestic terror. There have been over 270 attacks on pro-life entities, specifically targeting pro-life entities from this domestic terror group, Jane’s Revenge, which is related, as we now know, to Antifa.
So, we’re in a very precarious situation right now, and we’re concerned that there’s more violence to come, but the DOJ and the FBI are not engaging. So, we did provide them all of our video surveillance. They thanked us for it, and we also provided the video surveillance to the local police, and they’re treating it as criminal mischief, not as domestic terror.
Our private investigators do believe that this is related to the firebombing on June 7th of that particular facility in Buffalo. And so, we’re currently amassing more evidence so that we can drop the case right in the lap of the FBI so that they’re forced to have to make an arrest.
Allen: So, after the attack in June, what action has been taken? Has the FBI been in touch with you all, at least as it relates to that case?
Harden: Yes, but only after Ted Cruz and 39 other senators and congressmen sent an open letter to [FBI Director] Christopher Ray demanding to know why the FBI has abdicated their duty. That was on October 14th. I got a call from the FBI that day, three hours after the letter came out, saying, “Hey, Jim, the FBI would like to talk to you.” And I said, “OK, great. What would you like to talk about?” What they wanted to talk about was essentially how we’re portraying the FBI and the media. They were more interested in their reputation than they were in the investigation.
We’ve been saying all along that the FBI’s been slow-walking this, and what we’ve been saying is being corroborated by whistleblowers within the FBI that came out, even though as late as last week, saying that the FBI issued a new threat tag after the reversal of Roe in July.
Well, the reversal of Roe happened in June. But in July, President Biden issued an executive order to the DOJ asking them to look into what he called the fraudulent practices of pregnancy centers. The DOJ did respond. On July 12th, they created what’s called the Reproductive Health Task Force, looking into what they called anti-abortion activity. And then the FBI created a threat tag. The threat tag was pro-life adherence. What that means is, anybody who adheres to pro-life beliefs, says they’re going to be looking into that, and they encourage the FBI agents to look into what they called pregnancy centers.
So, they started to investigate us, and we know that, obviously, because they started to turn their investigative and arresting power on peaceful pro-life people like Mark Houck and others, with that infamous dawn SWAT raid at his house, putting his wife and family under the gun.
So, they did reach out to us, but it was only insofar as their reputation was concerned, and they offered me a deal basically.
The deal was, “If you stop pushing on the FBI with respect to the media, we will add a $25,000 reward to information leading to an arrest, and we will give you your video back.” By the way, we still haven’t gotten our video back. It’s been nine months now since the attack, the original attack, the firebombing, which injured two firefighters. We still do not have access to our own private video. Now, we weren’t able to make a copy because it was on a hard drive, and the power was out because of the extent of the damage of the facility.
So, anyway, the FBI was really at that point investigating me. My attorney came in with me to the FBI’s office, and we looked at the video surveillance, and it was a funny experience.
You know when you’re talking to somebody, you’re talking in a group, you’re just having a good time, you’re having a conversation with say, 5, 6, 7 people, and one person is talking and everybody in the group looks at that person who’s talking, and then the conversation goes to another person. Everybody looks at that person who’s talking.
Well, when I was at the FBI, I was surrounded by agents who were asking questions. And as the conversation continued, I realized that no one was looking at the person who was talking. They were all looking at me. But this is consistent with what we found happening with the whistleblower that came out. I think his name is Garrett O’Boyle. They’re investigating pregnancy centers and people related to any kind of pro-life adherence. So, this is disconcerting because we’ve been saying all along that the DOJ has been intentionally deprioritizing these investigations into crimes, violent crimes against pro-life people. And so, we decided to look into who’s responsible for that.
Well, the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division is responsible for investigations into crimes against pro-life pregnancy centers, and the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ is run by a woman named Kristen Clarke. Kristen Clarke is pro-defund the police. She is for supporting Antifa, BLM, and she is on her own Twitter account vehemently opposed to pro-life pregnancy centers. So, you’ve got a major conflict of interest within the DOJ, and you’ve got [Attorney General] Merrick Garland running cover for her, insisting that the DOJ is being perfectly evenhanded.
But the problem is that these crimes that are being perpetrated against these pro-life people are happening at night, and of course, the FBI can’t find anybody if they’re perpetrating crimes at night. So it’s laughable. This is a Maoist Antifa insurgency that’s happening, according to the Pentagon’s irregular-warfare expert who’s just recently died. His name is Rich Higgins.
It’s consistent with fourth-generation warfare. This is stuff that I had no idea even existed until we were attacked, and we became kind of the flashpoint. And by “we,” I mean the Christian pro-life people. Why are we so controversial? All we do is provide ethical medical care and comprehensive community support to women facing unplanned pregnancy. Why is that controversial? Why are we the kind of flashpoint, the source of ire for all these Antifa pro-aborts? And I think it’s because of what we believe.
We believe that all people are made in the image of God and therefore equally valuable, that we are endowed by our Creator, says the Declaration of Independence, not by our government. We are endowed by our Creator with certain in inalienable rights, the right to life being the most foundational, obviously. The one that presumes all other rights is the right to life.
So, that belief stands between freedom and a free country, and the rule of law and tyranny. So, we’ve got to find a way to get back to civilized order, and that means that the justice system needs to find a way to become blind Again. It appears that the DOJ and the FBI have been politicized, and they have been co-opted by a political narrative that’s coming out of the Biden administration, and the Biden administration is responsible for the DOJ. They are.
And the Senate Judiciary Committee and the House Judiciary Committee recognize that this injustice is happening, and we hope that they keep up the pressure, because that is their statutory obligation to maintain accountability over the DOJ and the FBI’s behavior. I believe, and this is what I said last week, and I said it back in August, I believe the FBI in particular needs to be investigated.
I believe the FBI in particular, that they need to be defunded or all the assets going to them need to be frozen. They need to possibly be dismantled, depending on the investigation, and rebuilt, and I say “rebuilt” because I believe we really do need an agency like the FBI. But President Biden mocked my comments at a speech in Philadelphia saying, “Did you hear that? That’s a good one. Somebody wants to defund the FBI.” Well, he wants to defund local police and add funding to federal law enforcement, which is a classic Maoist Red Guard move.
I mean, these people don’t want the rule of law. They don’t want this form of American government. They would prefer a Maoist Chinese government to a constitutional rule of law.
Look, I’ve said it before. I’ll say it one more time. This is not about abortion. All this activity that’s happening that’s swirling about us for these last nine months, all these attacks, this is not about abortion. This is a debate about what it means to be human. This is about what the future of our government will look like and the future of civilized order, because the stated goal of Maoist Antifa—these are not my interpretations of words—the stated goal of this multinational insurgency that has landed on the shores of the United States is to undermine the global civilized order.
And to the extent that they see pregnancy centers or pro-life people as representing capitalism or Christianity, they will see us as a threat and a target to undermine and destroy. They seek to dismantle and destroy, and that’s what they’re doing right now with these waves.
They come in waves, and what they do is, they recruit, because this is according to our prior investigators and the other information we’ve gotten from this Pentagon irregular0warfare expert and others. They recruit disaffected left-wing extremists, like pro-abortion extremists, like transgender-mafia types, like environmentalists, like what Jane Fonda used to be. Perhaps she still is. And then what they do is they unify them around anti-capitalistic ideas, and they’ll embed these protest groups with violent aggressors, and then they’ll move to what they call a direct action target under the cover of a peaceful protest.
And then these violent aggressors will begin to foment violence, and it’ll come in waves. And the waves will get eventually stronger and stronger, and each wave will cause an additional recruitment and embolden these actions. And that’s exactly what we’re seeing.
We saw Jane Fonda come out, typical kind of fourth-generation warfare move, inciting murder of pro-life people, and then she walks it back. These are FCC regulation violations. She should be charged with violations. “The View” should be charged. People that are carrying “The View” should be charged. They should, should have their licenses revoked, and they should carry fines, and they should go to jail, quite frankly. But no one’s holding them accountable. No one. Why?
Allen: That is the question, why? Well, and Rev. Harden, I think we have to remember, of course, our laws. Not only [are] vandalism and attacks on property of course illegal, but there is specifically a law called the FACE Act. The FACE Act stands for the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, and this act prohibits the intentional damage or destruction of reproductive health care facilities, which includes pregnancy centers. So, for you all, for your staff, for the people in your community that use CompassCare, what are the implications when you all are attacked? How does that affect the people in your community that use your services, and how does that affect your staff?
Harden: Well, when these kinds of activities occur, it creates a tremendous amount of angst. They’re intimidation tactics designed to get us to shut down. That’s exactly the goal. That is Jane’s Revenge goal. That’s Antifa’s goal. That is the goal of Senator Elizabeth Warren and Hillary Clinton and New York Governor Kathy Hochul and Letitia James, who is the [New York state] attorney general. This is their stated goal. They want to shut us down.
And these kinds of activities, the firebombings, the vilification, the rhetoric, this intimidation tactic with the graffiti on our sign, these are very disquieting, and we do have concerns about how it impacts our patient load. Our patient load has gone down about 30% since the firebombing. This has always been their intent, and it is specifically in direct violation of the FACE Act. But you notice that the DOJ does not list any of these attacks as FACE Act violations, despite the fact that they have a website with a webpage that’s dedicated to reproductive health task force initiatives that they’re investigating.
None of this is listed. We’ve got over 84 attacks now in pregnancy centers across the country. They don’t list them at all. So, it is disconcerting, it’s disquieting.
And I would say furthermore, this kind of activity is, I believe what Jesus was talking about. I mean, they’re calling us liars. We’re clearly the ones telling the truth. Why do I say that? Because they don’t want to have a debate. Anytime somebody doesn’t want to have a debate about it, that usually means that they’re going to lose that debate, because we have the truth on our side. Abortion is quackery.
Abortion actually harms women, and they’re saying that we’re the ones harming women and that we’re the liars. We’re giving women ethical medical care. We’re giving women informed consent, the ability to have informed consent. We’re giving women the ability to say “no” to abortion, because when one faces unplanned pregnancy, she says, “I’m stuck. I’m trapped. I’ve got no other choice. I need to have an abortion.” And that’s what we do, is we come alongside of her and give her the ability to say “no.”
And that’s true empowerment right there. That’s true choice. And they don’t want women to have a choice. They only want women to have abortions, which again, I don’t … . My hope is that this real fuel, the fighting spirit of the believers that are running our operations, the nurses, the doctors, the volunteers, this is, I think Jesus also said something about how this is going to happen, these kinds of attacks and persecutions will happen toward the end of the era, the age, and don’t let your love grow cold. He encouraged us not to let our love grow cold. These kinds of things, they make me so frustrated, they make me angry sometimes, but we have to be careful and not let our love grow cold because we’re here on mission.
We believe that the love of God eventually triumphs over all terror, triumphs over death and sin, and we have to keep living that way despite the fact that we’re under attack be a very dark and sinister Maoist Antifa that seeks a global civilized order that is basically communist.
Allen: Reverend, thank you for your time today. For anyone who is listening and who would like to learn more about CompassCare, the work that they do, you can visit compasscarecommunity.com.
But Reverend Harden, we thank you for your time and for joining us today and for sharing what has happened to your center and how you all are continuing to move forward.
Harden: It’s my pleasure. Thanks for having me.
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