Why Did Biden Treat His Political Opponents Like Prisoners of War?

The Biden administration treated center-right protesters and activists like traitors in wartime.

During his four awful years in power, Joe Biden treated conservatives as the same type of existential threat a regime at war treats anti-war dissidents. His administration's political persecution of January 6 protesters, pro-lifers, school board activists, and media critics revealed a regime fighting for its life against perceived domestic enemies rather than patriotic political opponents. Its actions mirrored Russia's in many ways, which Democrats endlessly berate for being authoritarian and corrupt in its treatment of any opposition.

Biden's Political Prisoners

Last October, the Atlantic Council wrote, "It is vital that the international community does not forget" the roughly 1,500 Russian political prisoners who remain incarcerated. While not commendable, this is remarkably low for a country of 144 million people that has been at war for almost three years. The article adds, "Any opinions on the invasion of Ukraine that differ from the official narrative are deemed worthy of jail time," including displaying the blue and yellow colors of the Ukrainian flag in Russia. However, this is no different from the Sedition Act of 1918, which outlawed the flying of the flag of a foreign enemy in the U.S.

Unlike Russia, America is not at war. Yet the 1,500+ January 6 protesters President Trump just pardoned equals or surpasses the number of dissidents imprisoned in Russia.

The pardons brought relief and justice to the J6ers and their families, as well as millions of conservative Americans who worry their government views them as traitors. American history is rife with public trespassing and disorderly protests, and were correctly treated as misdemeanors, not acts of treason. Some J6 protesters assaulted law enforcement and defaced property, but they constituted a tiny minority of those caught in the FBI's dragnet, which became the largest manhunt in U.S. history.

The zeal with which the FBI hunted and the DOJ prosecuted J6ers reeked of unprecedented political persecution in peace time. Among them included a 22-year prison sentence for someone who was not even in Washington, D.C. on January 6, proving the Biden regime and its judicial allies persecuted J6ers for their ideas, not their actions.

(READ MORE: In Clown World, Pro-Lifers Are Violent Criminals)

Department of Injustice

The Biden Justice Department similarly treated pro-life activists as national security threat to be locked up. The FBI sent around 25 agents, guns drawn, to arrest pro-life sidewalk counselor Mark Houck in front of his children on Sept. 23, 2022, after even the leftist Philadelphia District Attorney decided not to prosecute Houck for protesting at an abortion clinic. That dangerous and humiliating raid mirrored tactics used against many nonviolent J6 protesters. Houck is one of around two dozen pro-life activists the DOJ prosecuted since Dobbs under the KKK Act and Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE Act).

The FACE Act, signed in 1994 by President Bill Clinton, deals with people using physical force, intimidation, or obstruction of someone seeking an abortion. First- and second-time nonviolent offenders face lenient prison sentences; but if protests or obstruction results in injuries the defendant can face up to 10 years in prison. In Houck’s case, this “injury” amounted to shoving a pro-abortion activist whom Houck felt was threatening his son outside an abortion clinic.

“Congress was fearful that the FACE Act might be used against protesters who had been employing tactics that were used and celebrated by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,” wrote Thomas Moore Society senior counsel Steve Crampton, who sought Trump pardons for 21 nonviolent pro-life activists convicted under Biden’s Justice Department. “FACE expressly contemplated that group-oriented peaceable civil disobedience, as advocated and practiced by Dr. King and his followers, would be punishable as mere misdemeanors.” Crampton noted that "neither the Clinton DOJ [Department of Justice] nor the Obama DOJ dared use this plainly inapplicable law against pro-life advocates."

Crampton also remarks that Congress passed the FACE Act to protect the then-Supreme Court-protected federal right to an abortion. Because Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned Roe v. Wade—and with it the federal right to abortion—it should've also effectively killed the FACE Act.

On January 23, Trump granted pardons for 23 pro-life advocates who faced weaponized prosecutions against them by the Biden DOJ under the FACE Act.

Testing the Limits of Media Censorship

In October 2021, Attorney General Merrick Garland issued his infamous memo to the FBI and U.S. Attorneys’ Offices, instructing them to investigate the “disturbing trend” of harassment against school board members. This followed the National School Boards Association (NSBA) sending a letter to the Biden administration comparing parents concerned about liberal school policies with domestic terrorists. This prompted the FBI to look for “potential federal violations that can be investigated and charged.” Interestingly, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe’s wife Jill McCabe served as an advisor to the Loudoun County School Board and spoke in favor of letting boys into girls’ bathrooms—a key driver of irate parents at Loudoun County School Board meetings.

Clamping down on dissident media to shut down narratives that go against the regime’s domestic and foreign policy agendas is another point of criticism the Biden administration and its non-governmental organization allies lob at Russia. The Atlantic Council’s article notes, "During the early years of Putin’s reign, some of his government’s initial acts of oppression focused on the Russian media. Independent TV channels were taken under state control and satirical programs shut down."

The American Left’s playbook under both the first Trump and Biden administrations did not involve using direct public force to control information, which wouldn't have worked even in the country’s weakened constitutional state. Instead, leftists used their influence in the corporate world and intelligence agencies to pressure news companies to get in line and convince private social media companies to censor damaging stories like the information obtained from Hunter Biden’s laptop.

Those the Biden administration failed to silence through deplatforming faced the same intimidation tactics used against J6ers and pro-lifers. For instance, the FBI launched a pre-dawn raid with a battering ram on the apartment of undercover journalist James O’Keefe in November 2021 over the alleged theft of Ashley Biden’s diary, which contained memoirs of possibly inappropriate behavior of her father toward her when she was a little girl. O’Keefe’s organization, Project Veritas, never published anything on the diary and turned it over to police. Still, agents seized O’Keefe’s phones and journalistic notes that had nothing to do with the diary.

The Biden administration follows the same playbook its globalist allies blast the authoritarian Russian regime for employing. But Russia is at war, giving it some justification for heavy handed tactics to silence critics who could hurt morale and get Russian soldiers killed.

Yet, in peace, the Biden regime surpassed Russia’s political repression. It pursued and persecuted conservative activists as if those individuals threatened its way of life and the country’s existence. In the case of the J6 protests—with few exceptions—most should have received minor misdemeanor charges. Pro-lifers who sit in at abortion clinics should also face the same misdemeanor charges as those who practice other forms of civil disobedience. In the case of concerned parents who raise their voice during school board meetings, the FBI should never get involved. On the media front, the Biden regime and its allies used private sector pressure and backdoor intelligence agency intimidation to suppress information harmful to its administration’s agenda.

(READ MORE: Pam Bondi Will Take Parents off the DOJ’s Hit List)

Jacob Grandstaff is an Investigative Researcher for Restoration News specializing in election integrity and foreign affairs/national security. He graduated from the National Journalism Center in Washington, D.C.

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