[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 14 (Thursday, January 23, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S310-S311]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                            First Amendment

  Mr. HAWLEY. Mr. President, there is no right that is more sacred to 
Americans than the First Amendment right to liberty of conscience, to 
liberty of worship, to liberty of free expression. These rights are 
more than words that are written on a piece of parchment; these rights 
are solemn commitments that Americans make to one another, commitments 
that undergird our society; that establish its moral foundation and 
basis; that testify to the world that we are a society built on 
liberty, we are a society built on conscience, we are a society built 
on the right of individuals to follow the call of God on their lives, 
to respond to that call as they feel led and as they see fit within, of 
course, the bounds of the law.
  These rights--this foundational right to the liberty of conscience, 
the freedom of religious worship, the freedom to follow and respond to 
God--this is what establishes us most fundamentally as a free nation. 
This is what gives us our moral character as a nation, and it is what 
has defined us as a nation--the largest Christian Nation in the world--
since our founding.
  But I have to say, no administration in the history of this country 
has assaulted these rights more deliberately, more fervently, more 
grotesquely than the Biden administration. For 4 long years, this 
administration carried out one persecution after another against people 
of faith. It started during the COVID era with their shutdowns and 
lockdowns, when they targeted religious communities--evangelicals and 
Catholics and Orthodox Jews. It continued with their use of statutes to 
go after Christians and other religious believers who objected to 
abortion.
  Mr. President, I want to draw attention today--I want to draw the 
attention of this body today, to draw the attention of the American 
people today--to the plight of just a few Americans, 20 or more 
Americans who are imprisoned even now because of the persecution of the 
Biden administration, because of their choice to violate that solemn 
pledge that Americans make to one another, because of their choice to 
target the First Amendment rights of law-abiding, freedom-loving, 
peaceful Americans.
  I am talking about people like Mark Houck, Mark Houck from 
Pennsylvania--here he is with his family at mass--a man of faith, a man 
of family, a man of work and commitment and responsibility, whose 
crime--whose crime--according to the last administration, was to take 
one of his young sons to an abortion clinic and there to stand 
peacefully, to pray, to sing, to engage with those who wanted to talk 
about the alternatives to abortion.
  What did Mark Houck do when a pro-abortionist came and shoved his 
young son? Mark Houck defended his son. For this, the Biden 
administration sent a SWAT team--an FBI SWAT team--to his door in the 
early morning hours. Why? Well, just to terrorize him, to terrorize 
these children, to send a message to religious believers and pro-lifers 
all over this country: Don't you dare exercise your First Amendment 
rights. Don't you dare speak up in favor of life. Don't you dare take a 
stand.
  They took his case all the way to trial, where, I am glad to report, 
he was swiftly acquitted, completely exonerated.
  But other Americans have not been so fortunate. I think of Bevelyn 
Williams. Bevelyn is 33 years old. She is from Tennessee originally. 
She has a remarkable life story. She started a ministry that 
specializes in care for the homeless and for those who are living rough 
on America's streets. This follows from her own incredible personal 
transformation.
  She dropped out of high school when she was just 15 years old. She 
had two abortions herself and was later arrested for money laundering. 
Then she met Jesus Christ, became a Christian, changed her life, 
decided to dedicate her life to the service of others, to dedicate her 
life to those like the homeless, who have nowhere to turn, to those on 
the streets who have nowhere to go, and, yes, to those mothers who, 
like she did at a young age, struggled with an unexpected pregnancy, 
those mothers who felt, as she did at a young age, that there was no 
hope.
  So Bevelyn founded ministries that would reach out to these young 
women, that would serve these young women. And what did the Biden 
administration do to her because she had the temerity to exercise her 
First Amendment rights, because she went to an abortion clinic and 
there sang and prayed and worshipped, because she there told women who 
were coming into the clinic that there really were alternatives, that 
life didn't have to be this way? Because she told her own personal 
story, she was prosecuted--prosecuted--by a Federal court and sentenced 
to 41 months in prison. And what was her supposed crime? She leaned on 
a doorway in a manner that hurt the hand of a staff member. Let me say 
that again. She leaned on a doorway in a manner that hurt the hand of a 
staff member. For this, this amazing African-American woman was 
sentenced to 41 months in prison--41 months.
  I think of Lauren Handy. She is 31 years old. She is from Alexandria, 
VA. Lauren was one of two individuals who, in 2022, discovered a box of 
115 fetal remains here in Washington, DC, 115 pieces of remains of 
aborted babies, a number of them late-term abortions--not permitted to 
happen under Federal law--babies who had come to term and had been 
killed and whose remains had then been put into boxes and then 
discarded like so much common trash. They came to be known as the DC 
Five. Lauren helped discover them.
  Lauren also dedicated her life, at even her young age, to serving 
mothers in need, to helping those who had no hope. And what was she 
given in return?
  In August of 2023, she was prosecuted under the so-called FACE Act. 
She was

[[Page S311]]

sentenced to 57 months in Federal prison--57 months, the longest prison 
sentence of anyone under this Federal statute ever.
  I think of Jean Marshall, 77 years old, nurse, lifelong nurse from 
Boston, MA. In her thirties, she began a ministry using her nursing 
skills of reaching out to mothers who were dealing with unexpected 
pregnancies who did not know where to turn. She took to sidewalk 
counseling, going and volunteering her time, standing along the 
sidewalks outside of abortion clinics, peacefully talking to mothers 
who wanted to talk, helping them find resources, helping them find 
alternative medical care. She was prosecuted by this last 
administration for exercising her First Amendment rights for nothing 
more than trying to save the lives of unborn children, for calling out, 
for fulfilling her duty as a nurse to help those in need, for doing 
what she had been doing for 40 long years. This administration, the 
Biden administration, took her to court, prosecuted her, and sentenced 
her to 24 months in prison--24 months.
  There is Jonathan Darnel, 42 years old, from Kentucky. He is a former 
U.S. Army officer. He is a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He 
started out with a computer science degree and with a promising career 
in front of him where he could have made a lot of money, but he decided 
instead to go and wear the uniform of the United States and serve this 
country.
  And when he was finished with his service honorably, he decided to go 
and try to provide resources for those in need, for those experiencing 
crisis, to try to rescue the innocent unborn and to help their mothers 
who were in a period of crisis, in need, and for this, for his service 
to this country, for his love for the innocent unborn and the helpless 
in our society, he was sentenced to 34 months in prison.
  There is James Zastrow from my home State of Missouri, Columbia, MO. 
He is 27 years old. He was protesting peacefully outside of a Nashville 
clinic, alongside his sister and alongside others, again, offering the 
women who were there alternatives, asking them if they could help in 
any way. He was given 3 months in prison followed by 3 years of house 
arrest and probation.
  And then there is Eva Edl. Eva is 89 years old. She is a survivor of 
a concentration camp in Eastern Europe. Her mother was kidnapped by the 
Soviets right after the Second World War, and then she and her siblings 
were sent to a communist concentration camp in Yugoslavia.
  Amazingly, they endured, and the hope and faith that she found in 
that time led her to come to this country. It led her, once here, to 
begin to minister to women who were in crisis. It gave her a passion 
for the voiceless, a passion for the innocent, a passion for those who 
had no one to defend them, and none more than the innocent unborn.
  And so she began years and years of faithful witness to the value of 
life, to the hope of life, and faithful work in trying to provide for 
mothers in crisis help and alternatives and medical care.
  Here is what she was doing when she was arrested. She was singing 
hymns in a clinic hallway from a wheelchair. That is right, she was 
arrested for singing hymns in a clinic hallway from a wheelchair.
  This concentration camp survivor, 89 years old, immigrant to this 
country, was put in prison--Federal prison--by the last administration 
because she sang hymns from a wheelchair.
  I cannot begin to express--words do not capture the injustice of what 
this administration has done. And when you consider who the Biden 
administration saw fit--saw fit--to pardon while they were prosecuting 
and persecuting these good Americans, Joe Biden on his final days in 
office commuted the death sentence of one Jorge Avila Torrez, who was 
convicted of strangling a naval officer in her barracks while he was 
serving as a marine in Arlington. He pled guilty later to sexual 
assault and murder of Laura Hobbs age 8, of Krystal Tobias, age 9.
  This is whom Joe Biden saw fit to give pardon to; this is whom he saw 
fit to waive the rule of law for; or there is Kaboni Savage, a 
Philadelphia drug lord, who was convicted of killing 12 people, 
including 4 children.
  When you look at the disparity between those this last administration 
chose to reward and those it chose to persecute, it is hard not to feel 
anger. To be honest, it is hard not to feel rage. This is a grotesque 
abuse of the conscience of this country. This is a grotesque assault on 
the principles of this country, and that is why I have urged President 
Donald Trump to pardon all of these pro-life prisoners, unjustly 
persecuted, unjustly targeted, unjustly imprisoned by the corrupt Biden 
administration, and I do mean corrupt.
  From a man who used his power illegitimately to pardon his own 
family, to pardon his own son, to excuse his own kin of wrongful, 
willful illegalities, who protected drug lords and killers and 
murderers and kingpins and yet sent concentration camp survivors to 
prison because they spoke up for life, it does not get morally worse 
than that, morally debased any more than that.
  And so this is a time to turn the page. More than that, this is a 
time to right a wrong. President Trump can turn the chapter on this 
dark period of our history. He can write the wrongs this last 
administration perpetrated. He can begin to restore the requirements 
that the conscience of our country puts in front of us.
  He can, again, renew the commitment that is found right there in our 
Constitution, that commitment to honor liberty of conscience, to honor 
the right to follow God, to live out our faith peaceably, which is 
exactly what these pro-life prisoners, still prisoners, were doing.
  And so I urge him, I urge President Trump now from this floor to 
pardon these Americans unjustly persecuted, unjustly prosecuted, 
unjustly condemned. I urge him to pardon and to provide, once again, 
the moral clarity and moral leadership for which this country is known 
and to revive that moral clarity and moral leadership without which we 
cannot hope to lead the free world.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Banks). The Senator from Texas.