Biden's FBI continues persecuting pro-life activists despite public outrage over Mark Houck raid
Summary
Pro-Life activist Mark Houck was arrested in front of his own children. FBI raids on pro-life Americans continue. The Biden administration is continuing to use the FBI as a Gestapo force. In a new case, an FBI raid on a family, this time on a father of 11 children, Paul Vaughn, has been charged with trespassing.
Transcript
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The Biden administration is continuing to use the FBI as a Gestapo force.
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In Tennessee last week, there was an indictment of 11 pro-lifers.
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His home was raided by the FBI, similar to, but not as extreme as, Mark Houck with his
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I'm going to show you clips of that FBI raid, of Paul on Tucker, of the mother in the Houck
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case, of a bishop who has spoken up personally for Mark Houck.
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What is going on here is the FBI is being used as a Gestapo force.
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Why these agents are even doing this when they see what they're doing is insanity.
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But what we've seen recently with the Mark Houck situation, which we've covered extensively
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after breaking the story at LifeSite News, is that this Mark Houck case was only the first
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And we'll get to Peter Breen, the lawyer in this case, on why it's important to focus on
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However, just last week, a week after Mark Houck's case went all over the media, there's a new
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case of another FBI raid on a family, this time a father of 11 children, Paul Vaughn.
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Now, Paul Vaughn's wife was able to capture some video footage of the FBI agents after
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they had taken her husband out and put him into the vehicle to take him away.
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You can see that they were not very cooperative with her, not giving her details she was asking
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But if you're not going to let me, then I'll just...
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No, I want to know why you were banging on my door with a gun.
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In addition to that, Paul Vaughn appeared on Tucker Carlson, going over what happened to
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This is Tucker reacting to his beloved America being dismantled because, basically, the FBI
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Paul Vaughn, who was arrested in front of his many children, joins us now.
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He's joined by his attorney, Peter Breen, who's a senior counsel and VP at the Thomas-Moore Society.
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I have to wonder, what did your children think of this?
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You know, there's various thoughts and processing going on as they're dealing with this and trying
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Fortunately, as a Christian family, we do a lot of studying about historic Christianity and
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missionaries in the past and persecution that has happened in the church.
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They know their people have been martyred throughout history.
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They know they've been persecuted and picked on by bully tyrants just in other parts of history,
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But you're not allowed to unleash the FBI on an entire religion, are you?
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And don't think because they've been trained that makes it okay.
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When my kids go out to the car to go to school and the FBI pulls up, armed, running to the door,
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and one of them goes to the kids and holds the kids with a long gun inside of my driveway
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and does not let them go into the house, that is absolutely, as my wife said in the video, unacceptable.
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Well, it's one of the most shocking things I think I've ever seen.
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I have to ask you, so the FBI, the Department of Justice, I can barely say that phrase with a straight face,
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is claiming that you're a violent extremist who is a physical threat to others.
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Do you embrace violence? Have you ever committed violence?
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The only place that is ever even seen is in the documents that they made up and used to justify in their mind
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and through the justice system, the ones that signed off on this,
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needed some kind of justification in their own minds to go after peaceful people that disagreed with them politically.
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Peter Breen, thank you for working on this case, for defending Paul Vaughn.
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Do you think that this is actually going to go to trial?
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Well, Tucker, when you've got a federal prosecutor after you, we always have to plan for that.
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You know, Paul wasn't even arrested by the local police for trespassing.
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But those who did, who were arrested, were leaning on the tradition of Dr. Martin Luther King.
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I mean, this is the great tradition of American civil disobedience.
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And it's not the sort of thing that you turn into a 10-year felony.
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Paul himself, we believe we have very strong defenses and hope to beat these charges at trial.
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And I hope you do so with a country that rises up on your side, because this is...
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He wasn't even arrested for trespassing at the scene.
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And over a year later, they send the FBI to his house in front of his children.
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So remember, the first case in this scenario was that of Mark Houck, another family man,
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And this is the problem for the Biden administration.
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When you choose to go after pro-life activists, you're going to run up against some of the best
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Listen, Mark Houck was, we all know, he was a great Catholic.
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He was part of this group, Kingsman, which he founded, which is about combating porn and
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He was a pro-life activist who drove an hour and a half every week to go and counsel women
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to offer them help in love and charity so that they'd keep their babies and not harm themselves
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So these are the types of people that you're going to come up against if you're going after
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In fact, you don't have to take my word for it.
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Even though I was there, visited with Mark and his beautiful family.
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I can say that I have known Mark Houck as a friend, I'm going to guess, about 35 years.
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So I'm pretty sure we met before I was in seminary and I can vouch for him.
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I know people watching this all over the country and all over the world may not know Mark.
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They know the story and they want to help, but I can vouch for his character, the kind
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He's incredibly compassionate and motivated and dedicated and heroic and courageous.
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All the things you want to be, you know, for a husband, a father, a friend, a leader in
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the Philadelphia pro-life community for many, many years.
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Mark is involved with a group called the Kingsmen, where they many, many years ago would get men
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in front of pornography places to have men stand up and be men and say, why are you supporting
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And years ago, I went into the wild, which is one of Mark's things that he does with fathers
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and sons, where they go into the woods and they have this bonding sessions with fathers
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and sons, where they have Eucharistic adoration and mass out in the woods, where they bring in
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axes and saws and cut down old dead trees and transform an area into a literal outdoor chapel
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where they have a beautiful mass and then they tear it all down and it goes back to nature.
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And these weekends they have all over the country called Into the Wild.
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So as I said, I've known Mark for these over three decades.
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I know he played football in college and I know he's worried about his wife and children.
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But what can I, what, what I can say with, with great sincerity is that they picked the
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And another difficulty for the FBI or for the Department of Justice anyway, is that they're
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going to run up against not only great men, but also great women.
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Do you know that in addition to Joan Andrews Bell, the great hero that they already rated,
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These are the types of people they're going up against.
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And another great lady that they're confronting is the wife of Mark Houck, Ryan Marie Houck.
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Now, initially they couldn't do interviews because they weren't able to, the family was
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But Ryan Marie has since been able to describe in her own words, as she did first to LifeSite
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News and our great reporter, Patrick Delaney, but listen to her tell the story herself of
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what happened that fateful day on September 23rd.
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On September 23rd, um, the feast of Padre Pio, um, and it was the day after we celebrated
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Um, so we had plans for the day and, uh, we woke up, Mark woke up first.
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Um, he went down, well, first he woke me up, um, we had some children in bed with us.
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Um, so he went downstairs to put, um, the quiche in the oven.
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We had co-op that morning and, um, and I was about to get in the shower and I saw red
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and blue flashing lights on our wall, um, right back here and, uh, no sound, but I just
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So I went to the window, um, to see if there was a deer that was hit or, you know, somebody
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Um, and I go and I see, um, our whole driveway and our whole lawn, uh, covered with, I mean,
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Um, in fact, once I had gone downstairs, I could see that they were around the side of
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my house and everything, um, heavily armed, um, shields, um, helmets, vests, big, huge,
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Um, and they were running all around the property and getting behind cars and doors.
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Um, and then I start walking to the door, um, and I hear pounding on the door and somebody
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Um, he, he can't see, but our doors are, you know, solid.
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Um, I'm the only one who actually saw what was happening outside before he opened the
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Um, so I'm coming down the steps and he says, you know, who is it?
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They said it was FBI, um, to open the door and they're yelling and screaming and the kids
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were woken up and they all come to the top of the staircase.
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And some of them are coming down the stairs with me.
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Um, you know, um, you know, I'm trying to keep them away.
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Mark says, please, I have seven babies in the house.
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Um, and so he opens the door and immediately there's guns pointed at him, uh, a gun pointed
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at me on the staircase and, um, and then another gun over our threshold and pointed kind of
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So, I mean, essentially they had guns pointed at them.
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It's hard to even like wrap my mind still around that thought.
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You know, the children are screaming and crying, um, you just figure like one move from a four
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year old and something tragic could have happened.
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You know, he comes out, um, what's, what's going on.
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And, um, you know, they just immediately grab him and, um, handcuff him.
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Um, and I continued to come down the stairs and I, I just said, you know, who are you?
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And they said, well, we're taking him whether we have a warrant or not.
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Well, I mean, that's like kidnapping at gunpoint.
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Essentially, you can't just, I don't care who you are or who you work for, but you can't
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come to someone's house with guns and then take somebody, you know?
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So, um, they said that they would get me the warrant.
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So he was just in shorts and a t-shirt, um, downstairs, no shoes, no socks.
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And he said, you know, can you go upstairs and get me a sweatshirt?
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Again, everything is very chaotic because the children are just crazy.
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And, you know, my one son said, you know, he's my best friend.
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And, um, my daughter, uh, what particularly she had come downstairs, the one who had just
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Um, and there were men, we have glass doors in the back of our house, um, and there were
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men with guns at the glass door and she was terrified.
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So I, I have kids like attached to me, screaming and crying.
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Um, and then he also had asked for his rosaries.
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Um, and then they yelled back that they were going to bring me the warrant.
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And, um, one of the FBI agents, um, came up and he just tore off a piece, piece of paper
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of like a packet and told me that they were taking him to the federal building.
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Um, and that, you know, that he would probably be seen by a magistrate, um, that day.
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I would hear from him or a lawyer or something.
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I'm not really sure it was kind of, you know, just a lot going on.
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Um, so that was how the morning went, um, you know, and then I think, you know, some
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people may have seen some pictures as they were leaving.
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Um, I quickly said to my son, um, please go get my phone.
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So I was able to take a couple pictures, but people were already leaving.
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So that's, you know, that's about all, all I was able to get.
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But you can clearly see the kind of uniform they were wearing at my house and who it was.
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So it was, it was, um, you know, state troopers and, uh, FBI agents that we could see specifically,
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So we don't know all of the different people who came to our house or agents.
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Just a quick note before we return, if you would like to stay up to date on LifeSite's
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In addition to describing the events of that day, she was asked about the effect on her
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I want to give you a little snip of that just so that you see the suffering that was entailed.
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Mark, he, um, he's always been prepared to kind of, you know, lay down his life.
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He's a, he's a man of faith and he knows what he's called to do, but he didn't want that
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So, um, well, we weren't, weren't expecting that.
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So that's quite difficult, um, you know, and the children are, uh, you know, the older
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ones you can, you can talk to, and we have lots of conversations with them.
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Um, and you know, anytime I have alone time with any of them, um, I try and, you know,
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talk to them about what happened or like if they have any fears and just different things
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Um, we've gone to like some counseling and healing, um, sessions with, you know, great
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priest friend of ours who, um, you know, is gifted in that way.
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Um, our baby babies, they're the ones who have struggled the most.
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Um, they can't articulate what it is that they're feeling.
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Um, our four and six year old boys in particular, when we think about back on that day, um, we
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think how easily they could have just run underfoot like they normally do, um, and how tragic that
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Um, you know, someone was a little trigger happy, um, or if Mark had gone to the door with
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the spatula in his hand that he was using for the quiche, you know, just all of those things
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Our youngest, um, boy who's four, you know, he was just randomly screaming.
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I mean, we knew why, um, but you know, we just wanted to help him.
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He couldn't sleep without his older brother going to bed with him.
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Um, you know, so my 13 year old has to go to bed at like eight 30, um, because the boys
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And, uh, you know, so I think there's still just a lot of nightmares, a lot of uncertainty
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with them, but also we do feel like a sense of peace coming back into our home.
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We've had, um, priests come and bless our children and bless our home.
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We've had, um, you know, a woman made some scapulars for us and, uh, we had them blessed
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and we're all wearing them and, um, we're just trying to, you know, reclaim what we've
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worked so hard for with our family and in our home.
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And, um, because we felt like in an instant it was stolen from us.
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Now that you know of the great people involved, you know, them, you've heard the Bishop's testimony,
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you've heard mine, you've seen the videos that we put out about interacting with their
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This is why the Mark Houck case is so important.
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Peter Breen, the lawyer from Thomas More Society who is dealing with this case, they are so well
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situated to deal with this because they've actually dealt with it before when the Obama
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administration tried the exact same thing, they had to back off because of Thomas More Society.
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Watch this, Peter Breen describing what this case is, that they beat it before, they will
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beat it again, but the importance of Mark Houck because he's the first, he's the showcase
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and he's the one we need to be focused on, praying about and helping.
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First off, Mark is innocent, period, end of sentence, that's it.
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And this is a political prosecution, pure and simple.
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You know, we're getting, getting, you know, Tom Brekka had referred to it.
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We're getting indications of, you know, that the DOJ is probing in other places so that this
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is really their first major foray, their first public attempt to intimidate and frighten
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the pro-life movement and they, you know, as Bishop Coffey said, they picked the wrong
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And, you know, we, the Thomas More Society, won a case three years ago in this very district,
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it was Allentown, just up the road, but the same Eastern District of Pennsylvania on this
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exact same set of circumstances, which is when a sidewalk counselor, a pro-life sidewalk
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counselor and an abortion escort are jostling for position on the sidewalk or they're having
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a little disagreement about, you know, where are you standing, where am I standing, that's
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Here, we have an even stronger case because the alleged victim here was the aggressor.
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Mark and his son were well away from the gates of that Planned Parenthood, the biggest
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Planned Parenthood killing center in Philadelphia, thousands of abortions a year.
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The alleged victim, the abortion escort, walked to them, no patience around, no reason to
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go there other than to plant himself next to Mark's son and harass him.
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A 72-year-old man, this alleged victim, should know better than to go down the sidewalk to
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If a crime was committed in that altercation, it was a matter for the local courts.
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He should be heralded as a man who defended his son and who has done wonderful things to
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save babies and to exercise his First Amendment rights.
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When you have a federal prosecutor, they have a very high win rate.
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When they bring a prosecution against you, it is very difficult.
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When you get in front of a jury, there is always risk.
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So we want to mitigate those risks and give Mark the strongest possible defense.
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We have hired the best criminal defense attorney in Philadelphia, a gentleman named Brian McMonigle.
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And he's one of the best in the country, frankly.
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So you take our entire Thomas Moore team, which has decades of experience dealing with FACE,
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this Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act.
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You put us together with the best criminal defense attorney in Philadelphia, and we know
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that we are putting the strongest team on the field.
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As Andy had mentioned, it's not cheap, but it's worth it.
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Now, I want to very quickly acknowledge our friends in the United States Congress.
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Congressmen and senators have jumped up and said, this is wrong.
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This raid was absolutely outrageous and reckless.
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And you recently saw Senator Chuck Grassley, distinguished senior senator from Iowa, former
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He interviewed Matt Heffern, some of our other attorneys on the case, and his staff put together
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a set of facts and then a set of roughly seven or so pointed questions for the attorney
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And if I were the attorney general, I would not want to be on the other end of that letter
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And so I'm thankful that those folks, that the Congress is doing their work.
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And why are we so adamant about giving Mark the absolute best world-class defense?
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Obviously, we want to give him a world-class defense generally.
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But right here, right now, this is the first big case from the DOJ.
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And you may remember, about 10 years ago, a little more, the Obama Department of Justice
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came after peaceful pro-life folks using the FACE Act.
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They did a year-long investigations of our good people, sidewalk counselors outside of
00:26:53.260
So I was privileged to lead the team in Denver, Colorado, outside that Denver, Colorado, Planned
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Parenthood, one of the largest abortion facilities in the world.
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We gave the DOJ a big black eye there by defeating their attempts to get an injunction against the
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peaceful sidewalk counselors outside that clinic.
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And once those two high-profile wins came in, the DOJ retreated back to the hole from which
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And we had essentially no problems out of them on this front during the entire second
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Let's beat the DOJ, beat them soundly in a public case that everyone's following.
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And then, Lord willing, you'll have Merrick Garland, the Attorney General of the United
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He'll be there and have to answer those tough questions.
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Why did you put the Halk family in such danger?
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Why are you prosecuting this peaceful man for what is at worst a local matter, at best a
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And I hope, I hope that at that point, we will be finished with our trial and we'll have
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And I hope the Congress will invite the Halk family to come down there.
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If we don't do that now, this is going to crush us.
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The point is to use the FBI as shock and awe to try and stifle pro-life in America.
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We need to make our voices heard to our politicians, but also to the bishops, because very often
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And we need to be there to approach them, to go to them, to have them advocate for the
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pro-life movement, which should be very much in their bailiwick of concern.
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Praying is the most effective thing we can do, but we need to also act.
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We can act also with our wallets in terms of helping Thomas More fight this case.
00:29:07.380
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