In this special bonus episode, Senior Counsel for the Department of Justice, Camille Veroni, gives us an exclusive look at a new report out by the DOJ by the Task Force Against Anti-Christian Bias that reveals so many disturbing aspects of the Biden administration and his DOJ s target on the backs of Christians.
00:00:00.000Today, we've got a special bonus episode for you with Senior Counsel for the Department of Justice, Camille Veroni.
00:00:07.280She is giving us an exclusive look at a new report out by the DOJ by the Task Force Against Anti-Christian Bias
00:00:17.060that reveals so many disturbing aspects of the Biden administration and his DOJ's target on the backs of Christians,
00:00:26.380And specifically, how the Biden administration used transgenderism as an excuse, as a justification for discriminating against Christian doctors, medical facilities, against churches, against Catholic schools specifically.
00:00:41.720And then, of course, there was the targeting of the pro-lifers.
00:00:45.660Even within the DOJ, there was an attitude of anti-Christian discrimination and the feeling
00:00:52.300that Christians really didn't count as a protected class.
00:00:56.620And that manifested itself in very real illegal prejudice against Christians.
00:01:02.080And now the Trump administration is doing everything they can to shine a light on that
00:01:06.160and to reverse that, to make sure that there is equal protection under the law for people
00:01:11.600of all different backgrounds, including Christians.
00:01:14.220Here's a report's explanation of why and how American current moral values
00:02:25.800camille thanks so much for taking the time to join us on there's a new report out by the task force
00:02:41.280to eradicate anti-christian bias and i have to say as a christian i did not know that this task
00:02:46.480force existed in the doj so can you tell us about that first absolutely and ali thank you for having
00:02:53.420me. It's a pleasure to be here. So the task force is a part of the Department of Justice,
00:02:58.920but actually it was created by an executive order. So President Trump established it back
00:03:04.340in February of 2025, and it has 17 different departments and agencies on it. So the task
00:03:10.240force members are the cabinet members and the heads of the agencies themselves.
00:03:14.660Okay. And what exactly does this task force do?
00:03:17.360So we've been asked by President Trump to look into allegations and concerns of anti-Christian bias that he had read about, things that he had seen happen during the Biden administration, things that caused him great concern.
00:03:32.200And he wanted us across the federal government to take the time, spend however much effort and time it took to look into what happened, figure out what the truth is, and then answer to him on that.
00:03:45.480And not just identify where things went wrong, but make sure that we're able to lay out how our departments are correcting those issues.
00:03:53.160At the end of the day, it's about fairness, making sure that Christians are treated fairly, just the same as any other religious group.
00:03:59.520And what exactly did this report find when it came to anti-Christian bias in the Biden administration?
00:04:07.580Well, Ali, it's almost what you would expect.
00:04:10.520I think a lot of Christians who were watching what happened during the Biden administration had concerns about the policies that were impacting them and their families, the ways that they were living out their day-to-day faith in their lives.
00:04:23.800But what we found is that across the board, the Biden administration was willing to tolerate Christians up to a point, and that was when they held their views privately or in the four walls of their churches.
00:04:35.520But what we found was that when Christians were trying to live out their faith to see where the Bible, where religious tradition should inform how they actually went to school, went to work, that's where they ran into policy issues, that the Biden administration put their policy priorities above Christians' constitutional rights.
00:04:56.580Right. Can you give us an example of that?
00:04:58.900Absolutely. So one that I think hasn't been covered very much in reporting yet is Bostock decision from the Supreme Court. So that came out from the Supreme Court at the end of the first Trump administration in 2020.
00:05:13.760And what we found from the task force side is that it was not the Biden administration couldn't come fast enough for a lot of career employees at the federal government.
00:05:26.400So at the end of the first Trump administration, the political leadership there looked at what the Supreme Court said.
00:05:34.020And there was very clear language that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act was not gone.
00:05:40.960I think the opinion refers to it as a super statute that still protects Christians and other religious people who hold traditional, sincere views on marriage and family.
00:05:52.480The Biden administration, when it came in, went in a totally different direction.
00:05:56.420They took the Bostock opinion and created all sorts of new memorandums, guidance materials, and threatened across the board doctors, schools, school lunch programs, and girls' sports with compliance with their views of gender ideology at risk of losing federal funding.
00:06:17.500Wow. Yeah, this is from the report. So the Bostock opinion, and people might remember that Gorsuch for conservatives, in our opinion, was a disappointment there because he agreed with the kind of redefinition of what sex means and gender discrimination to include transgender identification.
00:06:41.480And so that kind of led to this rewrite of Title IX, which it sounds like you're saying the Biden administration really weaponized against Christian institutions, individuals and schools.
00:06:54.240You mentioned how they, and I guess this is because of Bostock, the Biden administration used the Department of Agriculture to tell these public schools that you can't get SNAP funds.0.98
00:07:08.660You can't get free breakfast and lunches for poor kids if you do not abide by this new rewrite and allow boys into girls' bathrooms.0.99
00:07:17.180So it seems like that would be one example of that.0.97
00:07:19.820From the report, it says after the Bostock opinion was issued, but while President Trump was still in office, DOJ put out a memorandum explaining that Bostock still required DOJ to respect employees' religious rights.
00:07:31.900Career attorneys balked and requested that the incoming Biden DOJ rescind the memorandum immediately to boost employee morale.
00:07:40.420The Biden DOJ quickly replaced the memorandum with an incorrect and expansive application of Bostock that applied the ruling to sex-based discrimination in federally funded schools and supports under Title IX.
00:07:52.000The Biden DOJ also considered requests for religious exemptions as harmful conduct to be regulated and pushed its incorrect Bostock interpretation and amicus briefs, even though federal courts repeatedly rejected it.
00:08:06.160So they really wanted to use this rewrite of Title IX, this transgender issue specifically
00:08:11.860to push back on Christians and Christian institutions exercising our beliefs about0.58
00:08:17.300biology and gender. Is that right? No, that's exactly right. And thank you for reading so0.96
00:08:22.640much of the report. That is exactly what we found. And when it comes to the school lunch program that
00:08:27.240we were discussing, it actually was worse than what you said. It was religious schools that0.99
00:08:33.100were most impacted here, not public schools. So the report talks about Catholic schools
00:08:38.440that were trying to participate, had participated actually in some of these instances
00:08:43.540in school lunch programs for 20 years. And many of them were serving all children who came into
00:08:49.400their schools without caring who they were, what their backgrounds were. But because the schools,
00:08:55.300the archdiocese that ran them were unable to sign statements committing to gender ideology,
00:09:03.100they they lost their ability to participate in those programs.
00:09:06.360And some of them did sue and ultimately prevailed.
00:09:09.460So we're thankful that the Constitution stood strong.
00:09:12.320But you can see where the policy impulse was that was driving this.
00:09:15.900Absolutely. And I didn't know that, that it was in particular Catholic schools that were hit by that.
00:09:21.940And it seems, according to this report, that maybe that was intentional.
00:09:25.240And we also see that they embedded the Biden administration,
00:09:29.580embedded the expansive reading of Bostock into guidance memoranda regarding gender affirming
00:09:34.320care for minors. The Biden Equal Employment Opportunity Commission likewise dismissed
00:09:40.100sincerely held religious beliefs about sexual orientation and gender identity
00:09:44.020as discrimination in hiring cloaked as religious practice. Yes. And that's so disturbing. And,
00:09:53.700you know, the chair of the EEOC under President Trump has talked often as part of this task
00:09:59.320force about how Christians are not second class citizens here. And the way that the EEOC handled
00:10:04.760these cases was deeply troubling to her and to the task force. Yeah. What exactly did that look
00:10:10.560like? How did the Biden administration kind of weaponize the EEOC to go after these religious0.96
00:10:16.040institutions? Well, so there were a number of ways, but one of them was the COVID-19 vaccines
00:10:23.840that was in the news substantially during the time. But the EEOC was the one who should have
00:10:30.160been leading the way in setting policy that was protective of objections for religious objectors,
00:10:36.880but also, you know, people who had other types of sincere health objections. The EEOC did not
00:10:43.000do that. So instead, the Biden administration created a new different type of task force
00:10:47.780to take the EEOC's place and run roughshod over sincere religious objections.
00:10:55.100Wow. And it really seems like this, especially with Bostock and the redefinition of gender,
00:11:02.060that that was really used as the way that the Biden administration forced its will upon a lot
00:11:09.340of these institutions. I mean, public housing, the Department of Labor was a part of this.
00:11:14.120Even the Biden Health and Human Services Department pushed providing gender affirming care for minors into their guidance memoranda with little provision for religious exemptions.
00:11:24.300Do we know how many Christian medical professionals specifically lost funding or licenses or faced investigations because they refused to go along with this?
00:11:35.700Unfortunately, I don't know yet the full extent of how many people were impacted by it.
00:11:40.340But there were many. And it's something that HHS, the secretary there, and his team, they've been taking this incredibly seriously. You know, if you look at that part of the report, and I hope that your listeners will read it, they talk about how this was a combination of efforts by the Department of Justice and the Department of Health and Human Services to compel Christians, faith providers especially, to toe the line and do their preferred policies on gender affirmation.
00:12:10.340care. And they threatened to withhold federal funds, a similar theme that you see across all
00:12:14.940of these examples, if these providers were unwilling to do what they asked. Yeah, can you
00:12:20.360explain a little bit further what this means in the report? When courts made clear that the HHS
00:12:25.320must offer religious accommodations for what we're talking about, HHS pivoted to a burdensome case
00:12:31.120by case analysis in which it could consider any perceived harm inflicted by religious exemptions
00:12:37.100on third parties, a process that could appear to offer illusory protection to those seeking
00:12:41.260to act in accordance with their faith, but I guess actually didn't offer that protection.
00:12:46.900Yeah. And, you know, that's a procedural question, but it's a very important one.
00:12:51.100So in the way that the federal government and some of the regulatory structures
00:12:55.180are assembled, there's often a presumption that people have sincere religious beliefs.
00:13:02.820actually the way that HHS used to operate with some of the conscience objections over
00:13:07.300contraceptive care was that religious organizations could sign a one-page form
00:13:12.120explaining that they do have a sincerely held religious belief. And then HHS would take them
00:13:17.300at their word. They wouldn't push back further. But what we found under the Biden administration
00:13:21.940is that they changed that practice. So now it was much harder for Christians, faith organizations
00:13:28.420to prove that they actually were Christian and that their beliefs on marriage, on the types of
00:13:35.380care that they wanted to offer to patients, that that actually was not harming people. So it put
00:13:40.840the burden on Christians to be able to keep their constitutionally protected rights.1.00
00:13:46.920Right. Right. That reminds me a lot of Jack Phillips in Colorado when, you know, he was1.00
00:13:53.040facing all kinds of persecution prosecution um for refusing to bake the cake to celebrate a gay
00:14:01.440wedding and the attorneys there were basically trying to make him prove the sincerity of his
00:14:08.320beliefs which the supreme court ended up ruling that you can't do that's you know treating
00:14:13.240christians with hostility and it seems like the biden administration was getting away with that
00:14:17.800Not only with that, but also when it comes to the FACE Act, using the FACE Act to target pro-lifers, a lot of them Christian pro-lifers.
00:14:26.220Can you talk more about what you found?
00:14:28.860Absolutely. And thank you for asking about that.
00:14:32.560So the FACE Act was one of our most troubling findings, so much so that actually the task force agreed to separate those out into the recent report that the Department of Justice published on the FACE Act.
00:14:43.480So when you look at the one, the report that we've been discussing here today is just a summary of that.
00:14:49.040But what we found falls into three main categories.
00:14:52.900So the first was the way that the Biden DOJ was outsourcing its enforcement, a federal criminal law to pro-abortion groups.
00:15:01.680So the National Abortion Federation, Planned Parenthood and the Feminist Majority Foundation.
00:15:06.400There are parts of the report where the documents that we found indicate that prosecutors knew that they were constrained by certain constitutional restrictions, procedural restrictions, and they relied on those outside groups to do what they could not do for them to monitor pro-life Americans.
00:15:25.620The second category were areas where we found specific prosecutors in their cases violating what they should have been doing, the way that they should fairly, even-handedly, methodically pursue their cases, and only to the detriment of pro-life Americans.
00:15:43.700So specifically, that looked like withholding evidence when it was requested by defense counsel, complaining about being assigned to Catholic judges and complaining about the beliefs of individual Christian defendants.
00:15:56.640And then the last category that I wanted to flag were the sentencing disparities. So what we found was that even though these were, for the most part, peaceful pro-life Christians who were outside of abortion clinics because they wanted to save children from being aborted, they were receiving significantly harsher sentences than the vandals with Jane's Revenge.
00:16:20.540You may remember that these were people going after pregnancy resource centers and houses of worship after the leak of the opinion from the Supreme Court that was overturning Roe v. Wade.
00:16:32.180And what was so troubling to us here was that it wasn't the judges who were intervening to give harsher penalties.
00:16:39.460It was actually the Department of Justice.
00:16:49.820And by we, obviously not talking about you, but just talking about the DOJ under Biden.
00:16:57.940And, you know, as you said, we're talking about violent vandals who are firebombing some of these pregnancy centers, getting in some cases half of the sentencing length as a peaceful pro-lifer who is standing in front of an abortion clinic.
00:17:13.320Can you talk a little bit about the Johnson Amendment and if there's any evidence that the IRS under Biden was misusing that or ignoring it?
00:17:24.680So we have significant concerns about that.
00:17:27.480And I will start with the caveat that there are really strong and important protections for taxpayer information that are reasons that we can't get into much detail at this point in time.
00:17:37.900in the reports. So we've focused on a couple of cases where taxpayers have come forward with
00:17:43.280their own information and volunteered it to the public. So it's important to say that up front.
00:17:48.680But what we found, there were a number of churches and Christian organizations
00:17:54.060who interacted with politics. They tried to look at how Christian beliefs should impact
00:18:01.040how they vote or how they should approach local referendums. So one of those that we
00:18:06.800talked about in the report was a church that simply had a candidate come speak on the stage
00:18:12.640about her testimony and prayed for her. The Biden IRS issued inquiries going after them because of
00:18:18.800that. What we flag in the reporter, there were also a significant number of incidents across
00:18:23.360the country where Democratic politicians showed up at churches as well. And to our findings to
00:18:31.680date, there were no inquiries in the same way after them. So it does appear to be an area where
00:18:36.280the Biden administration was at least applying this in a political way, only against particular
00:18:41.560Christians because of their political views. Camille, something that's really unique about
00:18:47.020this is a government report, or at least I think that this is unique. I haven't seen this before,
00:18:51.580is that at the beginning, it's not just about the results. It's an explanation of basic Christian
00:18:57.540theology. What do Christians believe? Why does it matter? Can you tell us more about what it
00:19:02.620actually says and why y'all chose to set up this report that way. Absolutely. And thank you so much
00:19:08.380for that question. I think it's important when we're talking about religious liberty that we
00:19:12.600start from defining what it is we're talking about. There's a quote from G.K. Chesterton that
00:19:17.180says, what is religious liberty without first knowing what is religion and what is liberty?
00:19:21.960And so that's what we do in this report. We start with an overview of the role that Christianity
00:19:25.860has played in American history and the American governmental system. We go through the rules that
00:19:32.080govern, how religion can interact with both the government and the people. But then we spend a lot
00:19:37.060of time going through, on average, what is it the Christians believe? And I think that that's0.93
00:19:42.480important in this context, because a lot of these issues, when you're running against these
00:19:48.320conflicting worldviews between policy preferences and Christian doctrine, they get to incredibly
00:19:55.300personal issues that touch people in the most personal parts of their lives, their families,
00:20:00.940the way that they view themselves, who they marry. And Christian theology is important to understand
00:20:09.160when we talk about those. So the report runs through, you know, what do Christians believe
00:20:14.680about God creating men and women? What do Christians believe about sin? What do Christians
00:20:19.780believe about God's forgiveness and redemption and why sin is an important part of that theology?
00:20:24.520And I think that that is an essential context before we dive into the areas where Christians0.77
00:20:30.660start to differ from American culture. Yeah, gosh, that's so brilliant for so many reasons,1.00
00:20:36.060because in any discussion, you have to define your terms. Like, what do we actually mean by
00:20:40.260this? But also, it seems that in this report, we're talking about the Biden administration
00:20:45.900really dismissing the convictions of Christians as something that are just like arbitrary or even
00:20:50.360rooted in hate. And so giving a theological framing for where we're coming from, that it's
00:20:57.020not coming from a place of hate. It's coming from a sincere belief in God and the Bible.
00:21:01.600It just makes so much sense and gives us so much context. And also it's like a comfort for me as
00:21:06.080a Christian that there are people in the government that understand where we're coming from and why.
00:21:11.720So that's amazing. Yeah. And I will say it's certainly not an exhaustive overview, nor should
00:21:18.040it be. You know, it's not for the government to say what Christian theology should be or what
00:21:22.300people should believe. But like you said, it's a central context here. We've had a lot of people
00:21:27.720give it some close thought to make sure that we're really trying to hit on those key points
00:21:32.820of what it is that Christians believe. I think that they're hopefully verses that are encouraging
00:21:37.940to many of your listeners who I think share those views that are described in the report.
00:21:41.740And just to close this out, can you talk about the other ways that you found disturbing that
00:21:46.700the Biden administration seemed to be discriminating against Christians specifically?
00:21:52.300So the report is 210 pages. There's, I think, nearly 1,200 footnotes. So I would love to go
00:21:59.840through them all. I know you don't have that kind of time. But one of the things that from a
00:22:04.760Department of Justice perspective that I think is worthwhile to note as we wrap up is just the type
00:22:09.840of outreach that we normally see the federal government do that was handled in a very different
00:22:15.060way. So normally when we're trying to inform the public about what civil rights protections they
00:22:20.560have in place, the constitutional rights that protect them. Many of the federal agencies will
00:22:25.980put together informational packets or information to dispense to constituents, to the American people,
00:22:31.980so they know what rights they have and when they should reach out because they're concerned about
00:22:36.320some sort of criminal violation or civil rights violation. So with that context, what happened
00:22:41.840under the Biden DOJ is they created a new brochure to try to explain what religious discrimination
00:22:47.760might look like. And that compiled about 20 pages of examples ranging from all sorts of different
00:22:54.900religions, different types of discrimination, but there was one that was not included and that was
00:23:00.100Christians. And the message that that sent was that the Biden DOJ didn't think that Christians
00:23:05.120could be the victims of discrimination. And I think that that really gets to the heart of the
00:23:11.180issue here, that because Christians were the majority faith in the country, the Biden
00:23:16.860administration seemed to view them as really not eligible to be considered under these
00:23:23.160constitutional and statutory protections. Wow, which is and should be illegal, which is,
00:23:31.320you know. Yes, well, it's contrary to what the law requires, which is even fair-handed
00:23:35.980application of justice for all people. Right, and we don't really have a justice system if we don't
00:23:41.980have blind justice that way. So this should really disturb everyone, right? Whether you're
00:23:46.760a Christian or not. Yes. Yeah. And that's what we've been saying since day one is that even if
00:23:52.300our findings are tailored to what happened to Christians, what we found here really should
00:23:57.360disturb everyone who holds religious beliefs. Because if the government can do that against
00:24:01.980majority group, nobody's rights are safe under that kind of system. True. Absolutely. So what0.97
00:24:08.520does the Trump administration, after all of these findings are uncovered, what exactly