The John-Henry Westen Show - September 26, 2022


EXCLUSIVE： Spokesman for pro-life Catholic dad of 7 talks with LifeSiteNews following FBI raid


Summary

On Friday morning at 7 a.m., 30 or so FBI agents showed up at their house, guns drawn, smashing on the door. And this is what we got exclusively from Ryan Marie, the mom, to our reporter, Patrick Delaney.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 This is John Henry Weston for LifeSite News, bringing you breaking news about the FBI raid on that pro-life Catholic family with seven children.
00:00:09.920 In the morning, the wee morning hour, 7 a.m. on Friday, 30 or so FBI agents showed up at their house, guns drawn, smashing on the door.
00:00:20.540 And this is what we got exclusively from Ryan Marie, the mom, to our reporter, Patrick Delaney.
00:00:27.960 If you go to LifeSiteNews.com, you will see the original coverage, which has now been quoted by Fox News and every major league news station out there, because this was breaking news all over the weekend.
00:00:39.100 Here at LifeSite News' John Henry Weston show, we have the first interview with the family spokesman, Brian Middleton.
00:00:45.620 But before we go there, a couple of things.
00:00:47.460 Here is what Ryan Marie told LifeSite's reporter, Patrick Delaney, on Friday, the day of the attack by the FBI.
00:00:55.540 Get this, she said, before opening the door, her husband tried to calm the FBI agents.
00:01:03.460 They're banging on the door at 7 a.m.
00:01:06.200 The little killeds are all there on the open staircase, so they're staring at the door.
00:01:11.100 She's coming down the stairs, and he says to them through the door, please, I'm going to open the door, but please, my children are in the home.
00:01:17.760 I have seven babies in the house.
00:01:19.760 And they just keep banging on the door and screaming.
00:01:23.180 And then when he opened the door, and this is again, this is Ryan Marie, the mom, explaining to Patrick Delaney at LifeSite News.
00:01:29.980 Please go there to check out the full story.
00:01:32.040 She explains when they opened the door, they had big, huge rifles pointed at Mark and pointed at me and kind of pointed throughout the house.
00:01:40.320 And when they came in, they ordered the kids to stay upstairs, and the kids were all just screaming.
00:01:49.020 It was all just very scary and traumatic.
00:01:52.800 And she, of course, asked for a warrant.
00:01:56.840 They said, we're going to take him if we have a warrant or not.
00:01:59.260 When she insisted, they did say that they were going to go get one.
00:02:02.660 He asked for a sweater and some rosaries.
00:02:06.140 When she came back with it, they had already taken him away.
00:02:09.900 It's unbelievable stuff.
00:02:11.620 It's an attack on freedom.
00:02:12.980 We already saw the FBI raid, not only Trump's home, but pro-life activists as well.
00:02:17.700 This is The John Henry Weston Show, and this is the first interview with the official family spokesman, Brian Middleton.
00:02:24.280 Stay tuned.
00:02:32.660 Before we begin on this blockbuster story, let me tell you to please consider making a generous gift to LifesightNews.com.
00:02:58.920 We are getting out the news like never before.
00:03:01.360 We were the first news agency to jump on this story.
00:03:04.620 The exclusive interview with Ryan Marie, the Houck mother who was confronting the FBI agents who took her husband away in front of her seven little kids.
00:03:14.960 Absolutely traumatic stuff.
00:03:16.680 Please consider making a gift right now at give.lifesightnews.com.
00:03:20.600 Thank you.
00:03:23.400 Brian Middleton, thanks for being on the program.
00:03:25.460 Thanks for having me, John.
00:03:26.620 It's a pleasure.
00:03:27.300 Let's begin, as you always do, at the sign of the cross.
00:03:29.000 In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
00:03:34.560 Amen.
00:03:36.440 So, Brian, things for the Houck family are crazy right now.
00:03:41.980 The first thing I think everybody wants to know is, how are they doing?
00:03:46.260 They're traumatized.
00:03:47.180 It's obvious that what took place, regardless of whether they were SWAT team members or not SWAT team members, a large group of FBI agents showed at their house at 7 o'clock on Friday morning, armed and with shields and typical gear that you would expect.
00:04:04.260 And banged on the door and seized the father of that family under gunpoint in front of the children.
00:04:10.820 So, their focus right now is trying to, you know, minister to their children who, you know, continue to have stress related to that unbelievable and unnecessary event.
00:04:23.200 Unbelievable.
00:04:23.620 I mean, one of the things that Ryan Marie, the mom in the situation, was so gracious to speak to LifeSite's Patrick Delaney, provided some details.
00:04:32.900 She was going to get a sweater and some rosaries for him, and he was already taken by the time she came back.
00:04:39.220 The children screaming at this horrific thing at 7 o'clock in the morning, guns pointed everywhere in the house, 30 or so officers.
00:04:47.260 It's an unreal situation.
00:04:51.440 But where they are right now, where, you know, what happened to Mark?
00:04:56.340 Where is he right now?
00:04:57.420 How are things that way?
00:04:58.820 Obviously, what took place, he was released Friday afternoon at a very difficult time to find any kind of professional counsel.
00:05:07.420 You know, in the world that we live in, we don't have criminal defense attorneys, you know, at our fingertips.
00:05:13.340 You know, the thought of having them is kind of odd.
00:05:16.380 So trying to put a team of experts together over the weekend has been the task that we've all been involved with, the small team.
00:05:25.640 He comes from a wonderful family.
00:05:27.580 They've gathered around him.
00:05:29.760 You know, Mark and Ryan are just incredible people.
00:05:32.420 And to think that this could happen in our community is a difficult thing for all of us to process, frankly.
00:05:40.780 The excessive use of force to a man who had already told them that when they wanted him to come in, he would come in is certainly leaves you questioning, you know, what the motivation was and what the presuppositions that went into this by the people who executed on this.
00:05:58.780 It's unbelievable.
00:05:59.780 But the Biden FBI has acted like a Gestapo force for quite a while now.
00:06:07.240 We saw it already with the arrest of Joan Andrews Bell.
00:06:09.960 Similarly, with massive FBI presence, we saw the same of other pro-life activists associated with her.
00:06:17.020 When that went down, we then saw it at Mar-a-Lago with President Trump.
00:06:21.360 So you're not, you're not, you can't escape this, even if you're the former president.
00:06:26.000 It's unreal what's going on.
00:06:27.820 The reality is, is that we've reached a point in our time where we have to stop pretending that we don't know what it is that we know.
00:06:34.620 The unthinkable has arrived at our doorsteps and we better begin to think the unthinkable.
00:06:39.560 You know, for years, I would see something that was evil and I would try to rationalize it.
00:06:45.860 Or I would see something that was irrational and I would try to rationalize it.
00:06:49.620 Well, you can't do that.
00:06:51.000 Like, you can infer motivation when you see action, right?
00:06:56.360 So there is no logical, rational reason, no good reason for this kind of excessive use of force.
00:07:03.880 So that leads you to, there must be ulterior motives because evil always behaves, believe it or not, logically.
00:07:11.520 If it looks illogical, it's because your presuppositions are false.
00:07:16.740 So let's get into this.
00:07:17.860 The charge or the accusation in question, it revolves around the Federal Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which is an act basically sort of safeguarding so-called abortuaries, which are killing children on the inside and people can't protest on the outside.
00:07:34.620 But if you can get into us or into the specifics with us, please, of what happened.
00:07:40.660 And, you know, it's interesting that you just quoted that act, because if this act had occurred at a soccer field or in a restaurant, there would have been absolutely no consequences to it.
00:07:50.480 But it happened to occur on the sacred ground of the progressive human secular left in front of their temple of worship, impacting their sacraments.
00:08:01.500 Because what took place, even if you were to accept the alleged victim's story, was a man was pushed.
00:08:12.000 But what was taking place, and for those of us who have ever been to these clinics, there's always people around trying to goad the prayer warriors into some kind of an action.
00:08:21.400 And this was this role of this other gentleman, that was his role, seemed to be, he's an escort, but he was also, I mean, frankly, some of these people almost appeared demonic in their language and their vile towards the prayer warriors.
00:08:38.000 That kind of an editorial on my part, I mean, the facts of the matter, as has been expressed to me because I wasn't there, is that Mark was doing his street counseling, and he was with his 12-year-old son, Mark.
00:08:51.980 And this gentleman began to target young Mark, was in his face.
00:08:57.960 I don't know the exact words that he was using, but it was an uncomfortable experience.
00:09:02.740 Big Mark saw it happening, went over, and with strength and virility, because Mark's a strong, virile guy, he asked him to stop.
00:09:14.120 The gentleman continued to lean in, Mark stepped between him, the guy just continued to lean in, and Mark pushed him, pushed him away from his son.
00:09:21.780 Now, look, between you and I, I thought Mark showed incredible restraint.
00:09:28.320 I mean, who among us, seeing our son verbally abused by a grown man, wouldn't want to do more than just push him?
00:09:37.920 And that's what took place.
00:09:39.320 The gentleman fell down, and there was no major injury.
00:09:44.700 They talk about undisclosed medical from, I don't know this for a fact, but what I've heard is that the medical procedure was abandoned.
00:09:51.260 As time goes on, you know, Mark gave his ID to the civil affairs officer that was there.
00:09:56.840 The Philadelphia police looked at it.
00:09:58.440 The district attorney looked at it.
00:09:59.580 The civil affairs officer looked at it, and they said, there's really nothing, nothing here.
00:10:04.400 There was then a private criminal complaint that was placed.
00:10:09.420 And after the gentleman who placed it failed to arrive at the courthouse on four or five different occasions, the judge dismissed that.
00:10:18.520 Six days later, Mark received a target letter from the Fed saying that he was being targeted for this federal offense.
00:10:30.100 They immediately let the USDA know that they were aware and that they were willing to come in at any point in time.
00:10:36.300 And the next time anybody heard anything from the USDA was on Friday morning at seven o'clock.
00:10:42.760 This is so unbelievable.
00:10:44.300 You have to try and fathom what this is.
00:10:46.240 So there is an altercation.
00:10:49.920 First of all, Mark travels a long ways to go and do sidewalk counseling because he's a pro-life activist in addition to being an awesome Catholic speaker at Catholic men's conferences and everywhere else.
00:11:00.660 But he goes, he prayerfully counsels people to embrace life.
00:11:06.420 And he takes his 12-year-old son there and one of these older pro-abortion escorts, they call them, is in his face saying vile and disgusting things about his dad.
00:11:22.020 And he's like right up in his face and the dad asks him to stop and he refuses.
00:11:30.480 He continues to go after his son.
00:11:33.920 So he pushes him and yeah, he falls down, whatever.
00:11:37.340 So the authorities look at this.
00:11:42.620 Mark Sr., that's Mark Houck, is willing to give his ID to authorities, submit himself to whatever.
00:11:48.440 They all reject it, say there's nothing here.
00:11:50.180 And then the perpetrator, or well, what do you want to call the escort, tries to bring this to a criminal court, submits it.
00:12:00.520 He never even shows and it gets thrown out.
00:12:02.940 Then the Department of Justice gets to Mark to say, hey, we're going to take you up on it.
00:12:07.760 No problem.
00:12:08.540 He says, I'm willing to come in.
00:12:10.440 They don't take him up on that.
00:12:11.860 They raid his home.
00:12:13.100 So this is, well, it's obvious what it is, but I want to back up for a sec to get to Mark Houck, because right now people don't know much about Mark and they should.
00:12:27.680 Take a look at this.
00:12:29.000 This is a clip of Mark Houck interviewed on Guadalupe Radio Network, and he's talking about confronting the abortionist.
00:12:38.980 He'd been waiting, even praying for years to be able to speak to the abortionist.
00:12:44.200 And he does.
00:12:45.100 He gets a chance.
00:12:46.360 Watch this.
00:12:48.920 I turned the corner to go home, and there's the abortionist at the end of the block.
00:12:54.500 I've been praying for 20 years for this man, and there he was, and I've been praying for 20 years that I would meet him.
00:13:00.580 So I went up to him and I said to him, keep his name off the airwaves, but I said to him, when is this going to stop?
00:13:06.760 When is the baby killing going to stop?
00:13:08.520 And he says, keep, move on.
00:13:10.420 And I said, can't we dialogue?
00:13:12.140 And I had this wonderful dialogue.
00:13:14.280 We talked about women.
00:13:15.420 We talked about healing.
00:13:16.680 We talked about babies.
00:13:18.420 And we talked about Thanksgiving.
00:13:20.040 And at the end of that exchange, I shared the love of Christ with him.
00:13:23.060 I told him we were praying for him.
00:13:24.760 And his heart softened at the end of it.
00:13:26.760 And I said, you know, my name is Mark.
00:13:29.100 And he told me his first name.
00:13:30.560 It was as if he was saying, look, I appreciate the extension of humanity that you've given to me.
00:13:37.900 Because we basically depersonalize these people.
00:13:40.960 We make them out to be monsters.
00:13:42.600 When in reality, this man is misguided.
00:13:44.880 He has a misplaced compassion.
00:13:46.660 And he doesn't know what we know.
00:13:48.900 So to approach him as a baby killer, which, of course, he is.
00:13:52.180 To approach him as, you know, an evil person, he's perpetrating evil, would not be the approach that Christ would take to this man, right?
00:14:01.740 He's loved of God.
00:14:02.940 He's still a child of God.
00:14:04.360 And so I opened a door, hopefully God willing, Joe, to a future conversation.
00:14:09.380 Maybe a meal whereby we can talk further about Christ and his plan for his life.
00:14:14.840 Brian, if you could speak to that, to Mark's heart vis-a-vis those on the other side, if you will, and what you've seen of Mark's pro-life sidewalk counseling.
00:14:29.200 Mark is a unique person.
00:14:31.940 He's dedicated his life.
00:14:33.540 He's basically, he and his family have turned their life into a sacred offering in order to help people.
00:14:39.660 As, you know, our mission is given to us from God to make disciples of them all.
00:14:44.760 Well, Mark is taking that way more seriously than most of us have.
00:14:47.740 And he's totally committed on many scales.
00:14:51.580 But they are truly, truly wonderful, warm, kind, and gentle people.
00:14:59.260 The, you know, he's been doing, I believe he's been doing the sidewalk counseling for close to 18 years.
00:15:05.340 And Mark's estimate, he wouldn't tell me this, I had to drag it out of him, but he estimates that in the last two years, he's prevented 20 babies from being killed in an abortion clinic, and probably more than 100 over the last 18 years.
00:15:18.280 There's one particular story that I think is really compelling, and that one day he had the fortune to be able to counsel a young couple who were going into the abortuary to terminate their child.
00:15:30.760 And he was able to invite them to have a cup of coffee.
00:15:32.980 They, they met, they decided against the abortion.
00:15:38.660 They then got married.
00:15:41.840 They had a baby.
00:15:43.100 They are an intact family.
00:15:44.900 And they're one of the many families that Mark has helped that actually come to his home for dinner.
00:15:50.100 Mark stays with these people.
00:15:51.720 It's not, it's not just talk them out of it and then turn them back into whatever negative environment they came out of.
00:15:57.420 He stays with them and surrounds them with, with the resources and the people that they need.
00:16:02.900 It's just so unfair, you know, that such good people are being so traumatized right now.
00:16:08.760 Well, there's something really neat about this.
00:16:10.840 He is a true apostle for life, faith, family, and freedom.
00:16:14.340 And you know what, as you said to me earlier, they went after the wrong guy.
00:16:21.100 They went after the wrong family.
00:16:22.420 Because in this suffering that Mark and his family have to endure, I think the scales are being removed from the public's eyes.
00:16:33.400 This story has already, since LifeSite News broke it on Friday, has spread all throughout the mainstream media.
00:16:40.060 And it's very difficult to paint Mark in any way as a perpetrator, as an evil guy, as a whatever.
00:16:49.100 His life is just an open book.
00:16:51.560 Tell me about that, if you will.
00:16:53.060 Yeah, well, look, I think we have to put this in the context of a bigger picture.
00:16:58.340 You know, we are at war.
00:16:59.940 There's a battle going on between the forces of good and evil.
00:17:02.680 You know, when the human secularists basically took over all the institutions, they removed God from them.
00:17:08.080 When you remove God from them, you remove truth, beauty, and goodness, and you replace it with lies, profanity, and evil.
00:17:17.340 And what we're beginning to see is the manifestation of that on a regular basis.
00:17:23.080 You know, this has to serve us as a wake-up call.
00:17:25.900 As we talked earlier, we can no longer pretend we don't know what it is that we know.
00:17:30.500 This is a battle that has to be fought with great love, but it has to be fought.
00:17:38.520 You know, I heard one time it's we have to fight with one hand and pray with the other.
00:17:43.260 But our battle, our weapons are spiritual.
00:17:46.660 This is the battle of powers and principalities.
00:17:48.680 And we, as good Catholics, can't lose sight of the approach that we have to have.
00:17:55.480 You know, there's a need for God that's hardwired into everybody's heart, no matter where they are in their lives.
00:18:00.200 And, you know, we as salespeople, as you know, need to sell into that and be an example of Christian joy.
00:18:07.200 And I can guarantee you that the HALCs, even with the duress that they're going, are filled with joy.
00:18:14.140 You know, joy and suffering coexist.
00:18:15.600 They're not opposites.
00:18:16.380 So I think, and this whole extended family, by the way, I mean, if you ever have an opportunity to meet the extended family, they're just great people who, I almost believe that God has chosen them, you know, for this challenge to be an example for other people.
00:18:35.820 So if we keep an eye on Mark and the family, I think we're going to be able to see Persona Christi in them.
00:18:42.440 They have a lot to be proud of.
00:18:44.760 I can only imagine if Mark is in my family.
00:18:47.940 What's the takeaway here that people should go away with now?
00:18:50.800 How can they help the family?
00:18:52.160 There is a website that's set up a send, send, what is it?
00:18:56.480 You probably know it.
00:18:57.700 Give, send, go.
00:18:58.600 Give, send, go.
00:18:59.460 That's set up.
00:19:01.220 The number one thing is that we need prayer.
00:19:04.000 That's not the least you can do.
00:19:05.160 That's the most that you can do.
00:19:06.940 I know our families have benefited from the prayers of thousands when we went through difficult time, John Henry.
00:19:11.760 And that's what we need first and foremost.
00:19:16.060 The Thomas More Society has stepped in, so that's going to be a huge help for the family.
00:19:22.300 But if you can go to that website and anything that you can donate would be helpful.
00:19:27.840 But the big thing is, look, we have to wake up.
00:19:32.340 You know, it's time for us to bring Christ into the public square.
00:19:37.860 He's been eliminated during our watch while we were busy raising our families and running our businesses.
00:19:42.760 This is our time to do battle.
00:19:46.060 You know, our grandfathers and fathers spent four years when they were little fighting a battle to give us this greatest opportunity to live the life that we've had.
00:19:55.180 It's this is now the battle that we've been raised for.
00:19:57.560 This is our generation's fight.
00:19:59.660 And we have to step up whether we like it or not.
00:20:02.300 And we have in Mark Hauck an awesome, awesome, what do you want to call him, general to fall behind.
00:20:10.780 It's it's amazing that we have someone to hold up who's right in the firing line and to both follow his example to support him when we can.
00:20:21.480 It's it's an amazing thing.
00:20:23.420 And make no mistake about it.
00:20:24.500 This is coming to a neighborhood near you.
00:20:27.020 If we don't stand up right now, Brian, thank you so much for joining us.
00:20:31.720 And we will start to pray right now that your role as spokesman, at least for now, still continues strong.
00:20:38.940 Great. Thanks, John Henry. Pleasure.
00:20:41.140 God bless you and God bless all of you.
00:20:43.880 We'll see you next time.
00:20:46.740 Hi, everyone. This is John Henry Weston.
00:20:48.520 We hope you enjoyed this video.
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00:21:08.880 Thanks for watching and may God bless you.
00:21:11.300 Thank you.
00:21:13.220 Thank you.