President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order establishing a task force to root out religious bias in the federal government.
The president announced the move earlier in the day during the National Prayer Breakfast. While addressing the crowd, he brought up the case of Paulette Harlow, a 75-year-old pro-life advocate who was arrested and convicted under the Biden administration for praying in front of an abortion clinic.
Despite her age and poor health, Harlow was sentenced to two years in prison under the 1994 Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, a federal law that prohibits using force, threats, or obstruction to stop people from entering abortion clinics or places of worship.
“Most of us would not have believed it possible that a grandmother with a severe medical condition, quite elderly woman, would be put in jail for praying here in America,” Trump said. “She was put in jail because she was praying. But we're joined today by a woman who was 75 years old. Paulette Harlow was sentenced to two years in prison for peacefully praying outside of a clinic charged under an obscure law that hadn't been used in years, selectively weaponized against Christians by the previous administration.”
The president further recounted that the judge “mocked Paulette’s Christian faith.” Harlow was one of several pro-life protesters who Trump pardoned shortly after taking office.
President Trump touts his pardon of Paulette Harlow, an elderly woman in her 70s, charged by Joe Biden’s DOJ and then sentenced to prison: pic.twitter.com/8VvQl3VpMp
— Conservative War Machine (@WarMachineRR) February 6, 2025
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The president then declared that he would issue and executive order instructing Attorney General Pam Bondi establish a “task force” to “eradicate anti-Christian bias.”
"Eradicate anti-Christian bias. 'Bout time, right?"
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) February 6, 2025
President Trump announces AG Pam Bondi will lead a task force to end the weaponization of government against Christian Americans.pic.twitter.com/qOWR5CII8o
The purpose of the executive order is “to protect the religious freedoms off Americans and end the anti-Christian weaponization of government,” according to the White House.
The executive order explained that the Biden administration “engaged in an egregious pattern of targeting peaceful Christians, while ignoring violent, anti-Christian offenses.”
As examples, the document references how the Justice Department under former President Joe Biden targeted pro-life protesters like Harlow. It brought up an FBI memo suggesting that agents infiltrate Catholic groups because “radical traditionalist” Catholics were domestic terrorist threats.
The task force includes high-ranking officials in various departments and agencies such as the Education, Health and Human Services, and Homeland Security departments. It will review the activities of these departments to identify policies or practices that could violate religious freedom.
Harlow was convicted for her participation in a 2020 protest at an abortion clinic in Washington, D.C. At her sentencing, the judge mocked her health problems, saying, “maybe she would ‘make an effort to remain alive’ because that is a ‘tenet of [Harlow’s] religion.”
Under the Biden administration, federal agencies targeted a number of pro-life protesters and other everyday Americans who opposed its policies, including parents who spoke out at school board meetings at inappropriate material being included in the classroom.
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