Biden's FBI once surrounded a pro-life father's home at gunpoint before his children were out of bed.
A jury threw the case out in under an hour.
Now the Trump Justice Department just delivered a verdict of its own.
Mark Houck FBI Raid: How Biden Sent More Than 20 Agents to a Pennsylvania Family at Gunpoint
It was 7 a.m. on September 23, 2022, when agents arrived at Mark Houck's home in Kintnersville, Pennsylvania.
His wife Ryan-Marie watched from the doorway as more than 20 agents with rifles in firing position surrounded the house and pounded on the door.
The couple's seven children screamed as their father was handcuffed and taken away.
The charge was a violation of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act – the FACE Act – for an incident that had happened a full year earlier outside a Philadelphia Planned Parenthood.
What actually happened in October 2021: Houck had brought his son to pray outside the clinic when a Planned Parenthood escort began harassing and screaming at the boy.
Houck pushed the escort away.
The Philadelphia Police filed no charges.
The escort later filed a private complaint – and a local court dismissed it before Biden's FBI ever showed up with long guns.
The Biden DOJ charged Houck anyway, and he faced up to 11 years in federal prison.
Sen. Josh Hawley put a photograph of the armed agents at Houck's door on the Senate floor and addressed Garland directly.
"You used an unbelievable show of force with guns that I just note liberals usually decry. You're happy to deploy them against Catholics and innocent children. Happy to. And then you haul him into court and a jury acquits him in one hour."
Garland deferred to the FBI agents on the ground.
Hawley called it abdicating responsibility and demanded Garland answer whether the show of force was objectively necessary.
Garland said no and kept deferring.
The Mark Houck Settlement and the 882-Page Report That Backs It Up
Houck and his wife filed suit in 2023, charging the Biden DOJ with malicious prosecution, retaliatory prosecution, abuse of process, false arrest, and assault.
A federal district court judge dismissed the case in March 2025.
Houck appealed to the Third Circuit.
The Trump Justice Department settled before that court could rule – for $1.1 million.
40 Days for Life CEO Shawn Carney, whose organization's legal team represented Houck, called the payout the biggest example of Biden's DOJ "being held accountable for targeting and persecuting pro-life Americans" and credited President Trump directly for ending years of persecution against the pro-life movement.
The settlement arrived the same week the Trump DOJ released an 882-page Weaponization Working Group report – built on a review of 700,000 internal records – concluding the Biden administration had "shattered the public's trust by weaponizing the FACE Act to advance a pro-abortion agenda."
The report found Biden prosecutors sought an average prison sentence of 26.8 months for pro-life defendants – more than double the 12.3 months sought for defendants who attacked and firebombed pregnancy centers and churches.
How Biden DOJ Used Planned Parenthood Dossiers to Build FACE Act Cases Against Pro-Lifers
Houck's case was not an isolated mistake.
The Trump DOJ report found that Biden prosecutors outsourced their targeting decisions to abortion lobby groups entirely.
Prosecutors coordinated directly with the National Abortion Federation, Planned Parenthood, and the Feminist Majority Foundation, using their dossiers on pro-life activists – people not yet charged with any crime – to build federal cases.
The lead prosecutor on every single FACE Act case served as a reference on the National Abortion Federation's grant application, with no ethics clearance on file.
Biden prosecutors also worked to screen Christians off juries, privately referring to pro-life defendants' religious beliefs as "culty."
When defense attorneys in a separate FACE Act case requested historical prosecution data to support a selective prosecution argument, the Biden DOJ's task force director said he didn't keep those kinds of records.
He kept them.
The Trump DOJ fired four Biden-era FACE Act prosecutors when the report was released.
Mark Houck offered to turn himself in before the raid.
Biden's FBI said no and showed up at dawn with more than 20 agents instead.
Now the American taxpayer has written him a $1.1 million check – and the four prosecutors who built that case are out of a job.
Sources:
- Bryan Hyde, "Pro-Life Dad Awarded Million-Dollar Settlement Over Biden-Era FBI Raid," American Greatness, April 18, 2026.
- Savannah Hulsey Pointer, "Pro-Life Activist Mark Houck Wins $1.1 Million Settlement From DOJ," The Epoch Times, April 15, 2026.
- Staff, "Pro-Life Hero Mark Houck Celebrates Winning 7-Figure Settlement Against Biden DOJ," LifeNews.com, April 15, 2026.
- Mary Margaret Olohan, "Biden DOJ Targeted Pro-Lifers After Abortion Industry Asked Them To," The Federalist, April 14, 2026.
- Staff, "DOJ Alleges Biden Admin Weaponized FACE Act Against Pro-Life Americans," Fox News, April 14, 2026.
- Josh Hawley, "Hawley Demands Answers From Garland Over Extraordinary Force Used by FBI to Arrest Pro-Life Activist," Senate Press Release, September 28, 2022.
- Staff, "Josh Hawley Torches Merrick Garland Over FBI's 'Unbelievable Show of Force' Against Pro-Life Family," American Greatness, March 1, 2023.
