The Daily Signal - INTERVIEW | CEO of Pregnancy Center Calls Out FBI, Justice Department for Failure to Act After Second Attack

Episode Date: March 20, 2023

The leaders of the pregnancy help center CompassCare in Buffalo, New York, were concerned they might face another attack amid court proceedings over access to abortion pills. The Rev. Jim Harden, CompassCare CEO, contacted the FBI in February raising those concerns. He says the FBI failed to answer him. "I asked the FBI," Harden said, "if they were going to be issuing any kind of threat alert to Christian pro-life people and organizations, and whether or not they're going to be adding protection, security protection to that judge [handling the abortion pill case]. They did not respond."  On Wednesday, CompassCare was attacked for the second time within the past nine months.  Around 11:30 p.m. Wednesday, surveillance footage shows an individual wearing a hoodie walk up to the front of the pregnancy center and spray paint the word “Liars” over the CompassCare sign. The individual then turns and walks away back down the street.  “This fits the definitions of domestic terror," Harden said, adding: “Those in the FBI and DOJ who refuse to treat it as such need to be fired and investigated."  This was the second pro-abortion attack CompassCare has faced. In June, the radical pro-abortion group Jane’s Revenge took responsibility for firebombing the pro-life center and spray painting the words “Jane was here” on the side of the building.   The FACE Act, or the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, prohibits the intentional destruction or damage of reproductive health care facilities, which includes both abortion facilities and pregnancy centers. President Joe Biden’s DOJ charged 26 pro-life activists with FACE Act violations in 2022, but did not charge any pro-abortion activist with FACE Act charges last year, despite Catholic Vote trackers reporting more than 100 apparent pro-abortion attacks on pro-life pregnancy resource centers and churches across the nation.  Harden joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to explain why he thinks Biden’s DOJ and the FBI have failed to take action against those who are attacking pro-life organizations and churches.  Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I reached out to the FBI. Again, they did not respond. They're refusing to call this what it is. This is domestic terror. There have been over 270 attacks on pro-life entities. This is the Daily Simil podcast for Monday, March 20th. I'm Virginia Allen. And that was Reverend Jim Hardin,

the CEO of the Pro-Life Center Compass Care in Buffalo, New York. In June, the radical pro-abortion group, Jane's Revenge, took responsibility for firebombing the Pro-Life Center. and spray painting the words Jane was here on the side of the building. Just last week, that same pregnancy center was attacked again. Hardin joins the show today to explain what happened and what response he's received from the FBI and DOJ following the attack. Stay tuned for our conversation after this.

Are you looking for an easy and entertaining way to keep up with the news you care about? The Daily Signal and Heritage Foundation YouTube channels offer interesting interviews with policy experts on the most critical issues and debates America is facing today, as well as short explainer videos that break down complex issues and documentaries that dive deep into the way its policy actually impacts people. Go ahead and subscribe to both the Daily Signal and Heritage Foundation YouTube channels today. You can search for either on your YouTube app or visit YouTube.com slash heritage foundation and YouTube.com slash daily signal. More than 80 pro-life pregnancy centers have been attacked since last May in the lead-up to the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Compass Care in Buffalo, New York is one of those pro-life pregnancy centers. Last June, Compass Care was firebombed, and the words Jane was here were spray-painted on the side of the building. The group Jane's revenge took responsibility for that attack, and late Wednesday night, Compass Care Pregnancy Center was attacked yet again. Compass Care CEO Reverend Jim Hardin joins us here today to explain what happened. Reverend Hardin, thank you so much for your time today. Thanks for having me. It's an honor to be with you again. Late on Wednesday night, your building was vandalized for the second time in less than a year.

Tell us what happened. Yeah, so if I could back up, we actually notified the FBI on February 20th, February 20th. February 20th, that we were concerned about increasing violence ahead of the U.S. Court District ruling that could overturn the FDA's approval of chemical abortion drug mythopristone. We started to see some uptick in online chatter around it, and similar to what we saw on the lead-up to the reversal of Roe after the leak of the Dobbs case. I asked the FBI at that point if they were going to be. to be issuing any kind of threat alert to Christian pro-life people and organizations

and whether or not they're going to be adding protection, security protection to that judge. They did not respond. We started to see an increase of activity further last week, specifically around violent rhetoric, even so far as we saw Hanoi Jane Vonda coming out in the view on Friday, essentially saying a solution to pro-life people would be to murder them. A few hours later, Antifa, Jane's Revenge, Antifa violently vandalized a pregnancy center in Minneapolis, breaking the windows and putting graffiti, you know, their signature graffiti threats on the building saying, if abortion isn't safe, then neither are you. Several hours after that, the Antifa, James Revenz people showed up boldly in front of that particular facility with their black, block masks, etc., protesting. again. The FBI and the police said they can't find anybody related to that, but all they

needed to do is take pictures of the protesters. And then we had the hearing. The hearing happened on Wednesday with that particular court case. And it was leaked to the Washington Post that the judge was concerned about the increased threats, death threats to him, his family, and his court staff in the lead up to this particular hearing. So that day, we were attacked again with vandalism. It was a typical kind of Jane's Revenge, graffiti scrawled out over the entire sign, which was said liars. Now, this is a typical accusation that Antifa, Jane's revenge, uses against pro-life people. They insist that we're providing misinformation, that we're harming women, that were lying to them, and that we're

going to make them a permanent socioeconomic underclass by forcing them to have their babies according to our Christian religious beliefs. This is, again, this is a typical kind of Antifa, Maoist Antifa pattern that we're seeing cropping up again. So I reached out to the FBI again yesterday asking them if they were going to issue any additional threat alerts like they did for the Jewish community in New Jersey on November 3rd. Again, they did not respond. They're refusing to call this what it is. This is domestic terror. There have been over 270 attacks on pro-life entities specifically targeting pro-life entities from this domestic terror group, Jane's Revenge, which is related, as we now know, to Antifa. So we're, you know, we're in a very, very precarious

situation right now. And we're concerned that there's more violence to come, but the DOJ and the FBI are not engaging. So we did, we did provide them all of our video surveillance. They thanked us for it. And we also provided the video surveillance to the local police. and they're treating it as criminal mischief, not as domestic terror. Our private investigators do believe that this is related to the firebombing on June 7th of that particular facility in Buffalo. And so we're currently amassing more evidence so that we can drop the case right in the lap of the FBI so that they're forced to have to make an arrest. So after the attack in June, what action has been taken? Has the FBI been in touch with you all, at least as it relates to that case?

Yes. But only after Ted Cruz and 39 other senators and congressmen sent an open letter to Christopher Ray, demanding to know why the FBI has advocated their duty. That was on October 14th. I got a call from the FBI that day three hours after the letter came out saying, hey, Jim, the FBI would like to talk to you. I said, okay, great. What would you like to talk about?

What they wanted to talk about was essentially how we're portraying the FBI and the media. They were more interested in their reputation than they were in the investigation. And, you know, this is, we've been saying all along that the FBI has been slow walking this. And what we've been saying is being corroborated by whistleblowers within the FBI that came out, even though as late as last week saying that the FBI issued a new threat tag. After the reversal of Roe in July, well, the reversal of Roe happened in June, but in July, President Biden issued an executive order to the DOJ, asking them to look into what he called the fraudulent practices of pregnancy centers.

The DOJ did respond on July 12th. They created what's called the Reproductive Health Task Force, looking into what they called anti-abortion activity, and then the FBI created a threat tag. The threat tag was pro-loyalty. Adherence. What that means is anybody who adheres to pro-life beliefs says they're going to be looking into that. And they encourage the FBI agents to look into what they call pregnancy centers. So they started to investigate us. And we know that, obviously, because they started to turn the investigative and arresting power on peaceful pro-life people, like Mark Howick and others, with that, you know,

infamous Don Swat rate at his house, putting his wife and family into the gun. So they did reach out to us, but it was only insofar as their reputation was concerned, and they offered me a deal, basically. The deal was, if you stop, you know, pushing on the FBI with respect to the media, we will add a $25,000 reward to information leading to an arrest, and we will give you your video back. By the way, we still haven't gotten our video back. It's been nine months now since the attack, the original attack, the firebombing, which injured two firefighters, we still do not have access to our own private video. Now, we weren't able to make a copy because it was on a hard drive and the power was out because of the extent of the damage of the facility. So anyway, the FBI was

really at that point investigating me. I, I, my, my, my attorney came in with me to the FBI's office and we looked at the video surveillance. And it was a funny experience. You ever, you know, when you're talking to somebody, you're talking to an, in a. group, you're just having a good time, you're having a conversation with, say, five, six, seven people, and one person is talking, and everybody in the group looks at that person who's talking. And then the conversation goes to another person, everybody looks at that person who's talking. Well, when I was at the FBI, I was surrounded by agents who were, you know, asking questions. And as the conversation continued, I realized that no one was looking at the person who was

talking. They were all looking at me. But this is consistent with, with, with, with, with, with, with what we found happening with the whistleblower that came out. I think his name is Garrett O'Boyle. They're investigating pregnancy centers and people related to, you know, any kind of pro-life adherence. So this is disconcerting because we've been saying all along that the DOJ has been intentionally deprioritizing these investigations into crimes, violent crimes against pro-life people. And so we decided to look into who's responsible for that.

Well, the DOJ's civil rights division is responsible for investigations into crimes against pro-life pregnancy centers. And the civil rights division of the DOJ is run by a woman named Kristen Clark. Kristen Clark is pro-defund the police. She is for supporting Antifa BLM. And she is on her own Twitter account vehemently opposed to pro-life pregnancy centers. So you've got a major conflict of interest within the DOJ. and you've got Merrick Garland running cover for her, insisting that the DOJ is being perfectly even-handed.

But the problem is that these crimes that are being perpetrated against these pro-life people are happening at night. And, of course, the FBI can't find anybody if they're perpetrating crimes at night. So, you know, it's laughable. This is a Maoist Antifa insurgency that's happening, according to, you know, Pentagon's irregular warfare expert who's just recently died. His name is Rich Higgins. It's consistent with fourth-generation warfare.

This is stuff that I had no idea even existed until we were attacked and we became kind of the flashpoint. By we, I mean the pro-life, Christian pro-life people. Why are we so controversial? All we do is provide ethical, medical care, and comprehensive community support to women facing unemployment pregnancy. Why is that controversial? Why are we the kind of flashpoint, the source of ire for all these Antifa pro-aboards? And I think it's because of what we believe. We believe that all people are made in the image of God and therefore equally valuable.

That we are endowed by our creator, says the Declaration of Independence, not by our, not by our government. We are endowed by our creator with certain in inal rights. The right to life being the most foundation, obviously, the one that presumes all other rights is the right to life. So that belief stands between free, free. them, or a free country and the rule of law, and tyranny. So we've got to find a way to get back to a civilized order, and that means that the justice system needs to find a way to become blind again. It appears that the DOJ and the FBI have been politicized, and they have been co-opted by a political narrative that's coming out of the Biden administration. And the Biden administration

is responsible for the DOJ. They are. And the Senate Judiciary Committee and the House Judiciary Committee recognize that this injustice is happening. And we hope that they keep up the pressure because that is their statutory obligation to maintain accountability over the DOJ and the FBI's behavior. I believe, and this is what I said last week, and I said it back in August, I believe the FBI in particular needs to be investigated. I believe the FBI in particular that they need to be defunded or all the assets going to them need to be frozen. They need to possibly be dismantled, depending on the investigation, and rebuilt. And I say rebuilt because I believe we really do need an agency like the FBI. But President Biden mocked my comments at a speech in Philadelphia saying,

did you hear that? Somebody wants to, that's a good one. Somebody wants to defund the FBI. Well, he wants to defund local police and add funding to federal law enforcement, which is a classic Maoist Red Guard move. I mean, these people don't want the rule of law. They don't want this form of American government, they would prefer a Maoist Chinese government to a constitutional rule of law. This is a, you know, look, I've said it before. I'll say it one more time. This is not about abortion. Well, all this, all this activity that's happening that's swirling about us for these last nine months, all these attacks, this is not about abortion. This is about what a debate about what it means to be human. This is about what the future of our government will look like in the future

of civilized order because the stated goal of Maoist Antifa, this is not, these are not my interpretations or words, the stated goal of this multinational insurgency that has landed on the shores of the United States is to undermine the global civilized order. And to the extent that they see pregnancy centers or poor life people as representing capitalism or Christianity, they will see us as a threat and a target to undermine and destroy. They seek to dismantle and destroy. And that's what they're doing right now with these waves. They come in waves. And what they do is they recruit, this is according to our private investigators and the other information we've gotten from the Pentagon Irregular Warfare Export and others. They recruit disaffected left-wing

extremists, like pro-abortion extremists, like transgender, you know, mafia types, like environmentalists, like what Jane Fonda used to be, perhaps she still is. And then what they do is, they, they unify them around anti-capitalistic ideas. And they'll embed these protest groups with violent aggressors. And then they'll move to what they call a direct action target under the cover of a peaceful protest. And then these violent aggressors will begin to foment violence. And it'll come in waves. And the waves will get eventually stronger and stronger. And each wave will cause an additional recruitment and emboldened these actions. And that's exactly what we're seeing. We saw Jane Fonda come out typical kind of fourth generation warfare move inciting murder of pro-life people, and then she walks

it back. These are FCC regulation violations. She should be, you know, she should be charged with violations. The view should be charged. People that are carrying the view should be charged. They should have their licenses revoked, and they should carry fines. They should go to jail, quite frankly. But no one's holding them accountable. No one. Why? Why? That is the question that why. Well, and Reverend Hardin, I think we have to remember, of course, our laws, you know, not only is vandalism and attacks on property, of course, illegal, but there is specifically a law called the FACE Act. The FACE Act stands for the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, and this act prohibits the intentional damage or destruction of reproductive health care facilities, which includes pregnancy centers. So, you know, for you all, for your staff, for the people in your community that use compass care, what are the implications when you all are attacked? How does that affect the people in your community that use your services?

And how does that affect your staff? Well, when these kinds of activities occur, it creates a tremendous amount of angst. There's their intimidation tactics designed to get us to shut down. That's exactly the goal. That is Jane's Revenge goal. That's Antifa's goal. That is the goal of Senator Elizabeth Warren and Hillary Clinton and New York Governor Kathy Hockel and Letitia James, who is the Attorney General. This is their stated goal. They want to shut us down. And these kinds of activities, the fire bombings, the vilification,

the rhetoric, this intimidation tactic with the graffiti on our sign, these are very disquieting. and, you know, we do have concerns about how it impacts our patient load. Our patient load has gone down about 30% since the fire bombing. You know, this has always been their intent. And it is specifically in direct violation of the FASAC, but you notice that the DOJ does not list any of these attacks as FASC violations, despite the fact that they have a website with a webpage that's dedicated to Reproductive Health Task Force, initiatives that they're investigating. None of this is listed. We've got over 84 attacks now

in pregnancy centers across the country. They don't list them at all. You know, so it is disconcerting. It's disquieting. And I would say, furthermore, this kind of activity is, I believe, what Jesus was talking about. I mean, they're calling us liars. We're clearly the ones telling the truth. Why do I say that? Because they don't want to have a debate. Anytime somebody doesn't want to have a debate about it, that usually means that they're going to lose that debate, because we have a have the truth on our side. Abortion is quackery. Abortion actually harms women. And they're saying that we're the ones harming women and that we're the liars. We're giving women ethical medical care. We're giving women informed consent, the ability to have informed consent. We're giving women

the ability to say no to abortion. Because when women faces an unbound pregnancy, she says, I'm stuck, I'm trapped. I've gotten no other choice. I need to have an abortion. And that's what we do is we come alongside of her and give her the ability to say no. When that's true empowerment right there, that's true choice. And they don't want women to have a choice. They only want women to have abortions, which, again, I don't, you know, my hope is that the, this, this, this real fuel, the fighting spirit of, of the believers that are that are running our operations, the nurses, the doctors, the volunteers, you know, this is, I think that Jesus is, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, also said something about how, you know, this is going to happen. These kinds of attacks and

persecutions will happen toward the end of the era, the age. And don't let your love grow cold. He encouraged us not to let our love grow cold. These kinds of things, you know, they make me so frustrated. They make me angry sometimes. But we have to be careful and not let our love grow cold because we're here on mission. We're here to, you know, we believe that the love of God eventually triumphs over all terror, triumphs over death and sin. And we have to keep living that way despite the fact that we're under attack by a very very dark and sinister malice d'antifa that seeks a global civilized order that is basically communist. Reverend, thank you for your time today. For anyone who is listening and who would like to learn more about Compass Care, the work that they do, you can visit compass carecommunity.com.

But Reverend Hardin, we thank you for your time, for joining us today, and for sharing what has happened to your center and how you all are continuing to move forward. It's my pleasure. Thanks for having me. And that's going to do it for today's episode. And thanks again for joining us here on this Monday at The Daily Signal. If you haven't had a chance already, be sure to check out our evening show that's right here in this same podcast feed where we bring you the top news of the day. Also, if you haven't already, take just a few minutes to leave The Daily Signal Podcast, a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcast, Spotify, wherever you like to listen. We love hearing your feedback.

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