On Friday, under the order of the DOJ, the FBI subjected a Catholic pro-life activist’s children, to a fully-armored SWAT raid. The founder and president of The King’s Men, Mark Houck, – a group that helps men overcome pornography addiction – was arrested at his rural Pennsylvania home on Friday, for allegedly violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, during his regular sidewalk counseling, outside of an abortion clinic back in 2021. If found guilty, Houck could face up to 11 years in prison and fines up to $350,000.
Houck’s wife, Ryan-Marie said, speaking with LifeSiteNews, that around 25 to 30 fully-armored FBI agents, stormed their property early Friday morning, aiming their rifles, as the children screamed in horror.
Ryan-Marie said –
“They started pounding on the door and yelling for us to open it,” adding (they) “just kept pounding and screaming,”
-Ryan-Marie Houck
According to the report, prior to opening the door, Houck allegedly tried to reason with the agents, to calm them down for the sake of his children. Houck allegedly told agents-
“Please, I’m going to open the door, but, please, my children are in the home. I have seven babies in the house,”
-Mark Houck
Ryan-Marie said of the moment that her husband opened the door for the agents-
“They had big, huge rifles pointed at Mark and pointed at me and kind of pointed throughout the house,” …“Our staircase is open, so [the kids] were all at the top of the stairs which faces the front door, and I was on the stairs as well, coming down,” adding “The kids were all just screaming. It was all just very scary and traumatic.”
-Ryan-Marie Houck
Ryan-Marie said that she protested the event, demanding that the agents present an arrest warrant, before taking her husband, she said –
You can’t just come to a person’s house and kidnap them at gunpoint,” (to which one replied they would “take him whether they had a warrant or not.”
-Ryan-Marie Houck
Apparently at that point the agents agreed and went to retrieve the warrant. While she went to retrieve her husbands’ rosary and sweatshirt, as he had requested, agents had already loaded him into their vehicle.
In her interview with LifeSiteNew she related that-
“After they had taken Mark, and the kids were all screaming that he was their best friend, the [FBI agents on her porch] kind of softened a bit. I think they realized what was happening. Or maybe they actually looked at the warrant. They looked pretty ashamed at what had just happened.”…adding that her children were “really sad and stressed” and “I don’t really know what’s going to come of it when you see guns pointed at your dad and your mom in your house when you first wake up in the morning,”
-Ryan-Marie Houck
Apparently, she has already “reached out to some psychiatrists or psychologists to try and help us through this” , to handle the trauma and stress they are experiencing as a result of the raid.
According to Ryan-Marie, the charges stemmed from a protective incident, during one of his sidewalk counseling sessions, in which Houck shoved a pro-abortion activist, who had been harassing his 12-year-old son, in front of an abortion clinic, The charges were reportedly “thrown out of the District Court in Philadelphia” earlier this year - only to later be picked up by Merrick Garland’s, Department of Justice.
In a report by LifeSiteNews-
“On several occasions when Mark went to sidewalk counsel last year, he took his eldest son, who was only 12 at the time, she explained. For “weeks and weeks,” a “pro-abortion protester” would speak to the boy saying “crude … inappropriate and disgusting things,” such as “you’re dad’s a fag,” and other statements that were too vulgar for her to convey.”
“Repeatedly, Mark would tell this pro-abortion man that he did not have permission to speak to his son and please refrain from doing so. And “he kept doing it and kind of came into [the son’s] personal space” obscenely ridiculing his father. At this point, “Mark shoved him away from his child, and the guy fell back. He didn’t have any injuries or anything, but he tried to sue Mark,” and the case was thrown out of court in the early summer.”
- LifeSiteNews
Conflicting reports conveyed a different story. According to WHTM news –
“Houck shoved a 72-year-old, on two occasions, …Allegedly the first incident, the man was attempting to escort two patients exiting the clinic when Houck forcefully shoved him to the ground. In the second incident, Houck allegedly confronted the man and shoved him to the ground in front of the Planned Parenthood center, causing injuries that required medical attention.”
-WHTM news
The WHTM report however, did not mention Ryan-Marie’s claim that the case had been thrown out of District Court prior to the Department of Justice picking up the charges.
U.S. Attorney Jacqueline C. Romero, stated that-
“the FACE Act makes it a federal crime to intimidate, injure, or interfere with anyone attempting to provide abortion access. She apparently also added that assault is always a serious offense, and under the FACE Act, if the victim is targeted because of their association with a reproductive healthcare clinic, it is a federal crime. Our Office and the Department of Justice are committed to prosecuting crimes which threaten the safety and rights of all individuals.”
And… Jacqueline Maguire, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Philadelphia Division added-
“Put simply, violence is never the answer,” “Violating the FACE Act by committing a physical assault is a serious crime for which the FBI will work to hold offenders accountable.”
- Jacqueline Maguire, FBI Special Agent
It would seem that Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice, has little to no confidence in the District Courts opinion regarding Mr. Houck’s innocence. This is evidenced by the fact that the DOJ apparently picked up this case after it was thrown out of District Court, deciding to arrest Houck and charge him with, violation of the FACE act. It would be interesting to see how all this transpired, as likely these charges can only after the case against him was dropped.
Further, that the FBI would raid someone’s home by such force, is unthinkable. Trump was right, they “will be coming for” the individual, those Americans, the left have singled out, to suppress and punish, for being in a disagreement with the present political thought of the day. And it would seem, they do not care who they traumatize while doing do. This raid and these charges are a travesty of justice.
One blogger put it this way-
“Once again, the Feds arrest someone in the most assaultive way possible. A single sheriff with the arrest warrant could have knocked on his door or just picked him up at his job or anywhere in public. But no, 30 agents with machine guns are needed to grab a catholic abortion protester. The Left is trying to provoke a confrontation with conservatives before the midterms.”
-www.mamaintheno.com
“The truth does not require a majority to prevail, ladies and gentlemen. The truth is its own power. The truth will out. Never forget that.”
-Rush Limbaugh