The Trump administration signaled that a law used to jail pro-life protesters should instead punish those accused of harassing Jews at a California synagogue.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a “statement of interest” on Friday supporting a lawsuit that alleges “a violent mob of anti-Israel activists” unlawfully blocked access to a synagogue in June 2024. The DOJ said the behavior the lawsuit described “violates the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act,” a law that pro-life conservatives want repealed but that also protects places of worship.
“The Statement of Interest from the Department of Justice is a most welcome development in our case against antisemitic rioters,” Carly F. Gammill of the pro-Israel group StandWithUs told the Daily Caller News Foundation. Gammill directs the organization’s “Center for Legal Justice,” which filed the lawsuit July 24 before amending it to include more defendants.
“We are immensely grateful for the government’s recognition that members of the Jewish community must be able to engage in religious exercise without intimidation or fear for their physical safety — and for the government’s demonstrated commitment to using the legal means at its disposal to combat antisemitism,” Gammill said.
Attorneys sued the activist groups CodePink, Palestinian Youth Movement, Honor the Earth, Westchester People’s Action Coalition (WESPAC) Foundation and two unnamed defendants over a violent protest against an event about Israeli real estate at Los Angeles’s Adas Torah Synagogue.
The lawsuit describes multiple assaults and protesters who allegedly “bear sprayed Jewish people and others present” and blockaded the building.
Videos of the incident showed standoffs between crowds of people and a pro-Israel protester wrestled to the ground and bloodied. The only reported arrest that day was of a pro-Israel demonstrator charged with carrying an illegal spiked flagpole.
LAPD beginning to clear one intersection. I’ve seen various platoons around Pico-Robertson and seen a few more chases and assaults throughout the neighborhood. pic.twitter.com/k1HdF93WRJ
— Sean Beckner-Carmitchel (@ACatWithNews) June 24, 2024
Former President Joe Biden called out the “un-American” violence a day later in an X post.
I’m appalled by the scenes outside of Adas Torah synagogue in Los Angeles. Intimidating Jewish congregants is dangerous, unconscionable, antisemitic, and un-American.
Americans have a right to peaceful protest. But blocking access to a house of worship – and engaging in violence…
— President Biden Archived (@POTUS46Archive) June 24, 2024
CodePink, Palestinian Youth Movement, WESPAC Foundation and Honor the Earth did not respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.
The DOJ’s Friday filing said if the lawsuit’s descriptions are accurate, they amount to “a physical obstruction within the meaning of the FACE Act” and are therefore unlawful. The DOJ said it is interested in the case because it is “using all available and appropriate legal tools to prosecute, remove, or otherwise hold to account the perpetrators of unlawful antisemitic harassment and violence.”
The DOJ’s public affairs office did not respond to a request for comment. (RELATED: University Hosts Speakers Denying Hamas Rapes, Praising Terrorism While Under Antisemitism Probe)
Conservatives such as Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas have called for Congress to repeal the FACE Act after the Biden administration overwhelmingly used it to prosecute nonviolent abortion clinic protesters. President Donald Trump pardoned the activists during his first week in office, including some elderly people sentenced to years in prison.
“The FACE Act should be repealed primarily because Congress had no constitutional authority to enact it,” Heritage Foundation senior legal fellow Thomas Jipping told the DCNF.
Jipping co-authored a Heritage paper released Monday that argues the 1994 law serves as “a weapon” against “pro-life activity and expression” and was meant to protect a “constitutional right to abortion” that does not exist.
“Since the FACE Act … does apply explicitly to houses of worship, however, it should be enforced even-handedly as long as it is on the books,” Jipping said.
The pro-life group CatholicVote told the DCNF, “We do support repealing the FACE Act because of how it has been applied in practice, but as long as it’s on the books, the Trump DOJ should be unafraid to use it to vigorously prosecute anti-religious hatred.”
A January memo from Trump’s DOJ said it will only enforce the FACE Act in an abortion-related case with “extraordinary circumstances” such as “death, serious bodily harm, or serious property damage.”
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