{"id":1665242,"date":"2022-09-29T17:35:02","date_gmt":"2022-09-29T21:35:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1665242"},"modified":"2022-09-29T17:35:22","modified_gmt":"2022-09-29T21:35:22","slug":"fbi-use-of-force-in-pro-life-arrest-shocking-and-unnecessary-heritage-foundation-senior-legal-fellow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/fbi-use-of-force-in-pro-life-arrest-shocking-and-unnecessary-heritage-foundation-senior-legal-fellow\/","title":{"rendered":"FBI Use of Force in Pro-Life Arrest \u2018Shocking\u2019 and \u2018Unnecessary\u2019: Heritage Foundation Senior Legal Fellow"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">30<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ffbi-use-of-force-in-pro-life-arrest-shocking-and-unnecessary-heritage-foundation-senior-legal-fellow%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1665242&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>A senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation thinktank, Hans von Spakovsky, believes the arrest of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-pro-life\">pro-life<\/a> activist <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-mark-houck\">Mark Houck<\/a> by armed agents, based on the facts of the case, did not warrant that level of force by the U.S. Department of Justice (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-doj\">DOJ<\/a>) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), saying they went \u201cway overboard.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Von Spakovsky said U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland has \u201cweaponized\u201d the DOJ to go after <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/arrest-of-catholic-pro-life-speaker-a-new-low-for-justice-department-attorney_4758033.html?utm_source=ai&amp;utm_medium=search\">political opponents,<\/a> and FBI leadership should not have gone along with it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is a use of law enforcement in a way that it should not be used. And frankly, it\u2019s shocking, and should scare a lot of Americans,\u201d von Spakovsky said during a Sept. 28 interview with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ntd.com\/fbi-raid-on-activist-houck-unnecessary-use-of-force-hans-von-spakovsky_848011.html\">NTD Capitol Report.<\/a> The arrest of Houck using an armed FBI team was, an \u201cunnecessary use of force, and the entire prosecution and indictment of him seem way overboard.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Epoch Times reached out to the DOJ for comment.<\/p>\n<p>Houck, co-founder and president of The King\u2019s Men apostolate, is an author, lecturer, radio host, and activist who often went to an abortion clinic to speak and pray peacefully. He <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/pro-life-activist-mark-houck-pleads-not-guilty-after-widely-criticized-fbi-arrest_4758583.html?utm_source=ai&amp;utm_medium=search\">pleaded not guilty<\/a> on Sept. 27 to federal charges after he was arrested by\u00a0FBI\u00a0agents in an early morning raid at his home, last week.<\/p>\n<p>Von Spakovsky questioned why the DOJ picked up Houck\u2019s case after it was dropped by his district attorney last year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think this is not a real case,\u201d said von Spakovsky. \u201cThe district attorney in Philadelphia refused to file any criminal charges. The civil lawsuit filed by this escort was thrown out of court and yet now a year later, all of a sudden, the Justice Department jumps in and shows up at Mr. Houck\u2019s door with guns drawn and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/fbi-responds-to-reports-that-swat-team-was-used-to-arrest-pro-life-activist-in-front-of-children_4755980.html?utm_source=ai&amp;utm_medium=search\">two dozen FBI agents<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>DOJ prosecutors accused Houck of violating<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation thinktank, Hans von Spakovsky, believes the arrest of pro-life activist Mark Houck by armed agents, based on the facts of the case, did not warrant that level of force by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), saying they went \u201cway overboard.\u201d [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":430,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1665242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1665242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/430"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1665242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1665242\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1665242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1665242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1665242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}