Politics
Trump Pardons Anti-Abortion Activists Who Blockaded Clinic
President Trump signed orders on Thursday granting pardons to anti-abortion activists a day before the annual March for Life rally in Washington.
An aide who handed the orders to Mr. Trump to sign described them as relief for some 23 “peaceful pro-life protesters.”
“They should not have been prosecuted,” Mr. Trump said in the Oval Office. “This is a great honor to sign this.”
Mr. Trump did not specify the names of the people who received the pardons, but the order that he held up for cameras to capture included the names of 10 anti-abortion activists who were prosecuted under the Biden administration for their roles in blockading an abortion clinic in Washington, D.C., in October 2020.
The defendants in that case were charged with two federal offenses: conspiring against civil rights and violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, for the parts they played in blocking the entrance to that clinic. That law makes it a crime to threaten, obstruct or injure a person seeking access to a reproductive health clinic or to damage clinic property.
One of the anti-abortion activists, Lauren Handy, was sentenced to nearly five years in prison last year for her role in leading the blockade. Her case drew widespread attention when the police said that they had found five fetuses in her home shortly after she was charged in the case. Other defendants received sentences of less than three years in prison. One defendant, Jay Smith, 34, of Freeport, New York, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 10 months in prison.
The defendants, their representatives and allies, including Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, have argued that they were exercising their First Amendment right to protest. Mr. Hawley celebrated Mr. Trump’s move Thursday on social media, and he has said that he had urged the president to pardon them swiftly.
The FACE Act, the 1994 law that protects reproductive health clinics, was rarely used during Mr. Trump’s first term. But in response to the State of Texas’ passing a restrictive abortion bill in 2021, Merrick B. Garland, the attorney general in the Biden administration, signaled that the Justice Department saw enforcement of the FACE Act as a priority as it sought to protect the constitutional right to abortion more broadly.
The anti-abortion activists Mr. Trump pardoned were charged in March 2022, and the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion enshrined by Roe v. Wade later that year.
Steve Crampton, senior counsel at the nonprofit Thomas More Society law firm, which represented Ms. Handy, said that his client and her co-defendants “were treated shamefully by Biden’s D.O.J.,” referring to the Department of Justice, “with many of them branded felons and losing many rights that we take for granted as American citizens.”
He added, “Thank you to President Trump and his team for righting these grievous wrongs of the previous administration.”
It was the latest act of clemency by Mr. Trump, who on Day 1 of his presidency pardoned nearly all of the nearly 1,600 people charged with crimes in connection to the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol — including violence against police officers. Federal prosecutors in the cases of the anti-abortion activists asserted that they had used force and intimidation to prevent people from seeking care.
“These defendants conspired to use force to prevent fellow citizens from exercising rights protected by law,” said Matthew Graves, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, after three of the people pardoned by Mr. Trump were sentenced last year.
Mr. Graves, who stepped down as U.S. attorney earlier this month, also oversaw many of the prosecutions in the Jan. 6 cases.
Vice President JD Vance is expected to speak at the March for Life gathering, which began in protest of Roe v. Wade, on Friday.
During the 2024 campaign, Mr. Trump carefully calibrated his message on abortion, saying that he would not sign a federal ban on abortion and that the issue should be left up to the states, a position that earned him rare criticism from anti-abortion groups.
Mr. Vance, who has previously supported imposing a national ban on abortion, had at one point claimed that Mr. Trump would go so far as to veto such a ban, but Mr. Trump disavowed that pledge during his debate against Vice President Kamala Harris. Weeks later, Mr. Trump said he would, in fact, veto a national abortion ban.
new video loaded: Reflecting Pool Turns Green, Paint Peels After Renovation
transcript
transcript
Reflecting Pool Turns Green, Paint Peels After Renovation
Algae blooms have hit the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, which underwent a $14.2 million repair project. Blue paint appeared to be chipping from the bottom.
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“The reflecting pool is greener than I have ever seen it before due to algae.” “I was expecting to see blue, but green is O.K.” “Honestly, I don’t think you can fight mother nature.”
By Julie Yoon, Jackeline Luna and Alisa Shodiyev Kaff
June 19, 2026
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
House GOP Conference Chairwoman Lisa McClain, R-Mich., rebuked a school board in Richmond, Michigan, after some of its members tried to remove a conservative colleague for missing meetings while on military deployment to the Middle East.
Ray Stier, who received an American flag and a copy of the Congressional Record from McClain on Thursday as a commendation of his work, had been on deployment, attending board meetings remotely, but eventually lost virtual access.
That’s when the board called for his removal, citing a “disservice” caused by his absence.
“One of the board members’ family was taking to social media and putting out misinformation about myself and my wife and things that were not factually accurate and then ultimately calling for my resignation and prompting others to reach out to the district to call for my recall,” Stier recounted.
PARENTS SAY THEY’RE RUNNING FOR LOCAL SCHOOL BOARDS TO FIGHT ‘POISONOUS’ CRITICAL RACE THEORY
House GOP Conference Chairwoman Lisa McClain, R-Mich., left, pictured alongside Ray Stier, a school board member in Richmond, Michigan. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images; office of Lisa McClain)
The moment is just the most recent clash between Republicans and school boards over policies that, in their view, are gatekeeping schools against diversity of thought and accountability.
“I think education is extremely important and vital,” McClain told Fox News Digital.
“And educators and administrators need to teach children how to think, not what to think. It’s about time that administrators begin to get held accountable for their actions. Good actions and bad actions.”
McClain’s meeting with Stier comes on the heels of a congressional hearing last week where she grilled a superintendent from Virginia over student privacy policy, probing if those policies were being unevenly applied to favor transgender students.
VIRGINIA SCHOOL DISTRICT SLAPPED WITH COMPLAINT ALLEGING NEW CLAIMS IN VIRAL TRANS LOCKER ROOM FIGHT
Rep. Lisa McClain, R-Mich., leaves a House Republican Conference meeting at the Capitol Hill Club on Feb. 28, 2023. (Tom Williams/ CQ Roll Call via Getty Images)
“The victims got a 10-day suspension and the biological female that did the filming got a one-day suspension,” McClain said, referring to an incident at Stone Bridge High School in Loudoun County where students had been reprimanded for filming in a locker room.
“How does that make sense?”
In Stier’s case, McClain questioned whether the board had targeted Stier on account of just his deployment overseas. Stierhad clashed with the board after learning that some of the district’s bathroom policies would have allowed fourth-grade students to use the same bathroom as transgender eighth-grade boys.
“Prior to him filling the seat, the seat was open for two months,” McClain observed. So that logical argument doesn’t exactly make sense to me; it doesn’t really hold a lot of water.”
MICHIGAN PARENT WANTS TRUMP TO ACT AFTER DAUGHTER SHARES LOCKER ROOM WITH TRANS-ATHLETE
House GOP Conference Chairwoman Lisa McClain, R-Mich., left, pictured alongside Richmond, Michigan school board member Ray Stier right. (Office of Lisa McClain)
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For his own part, Stier believes his case will refocus attention on the importance of the school board and its membership.
“My goal is to continue being an advocate for the community. One of the good things that I think came out of this was that it got so much attention that some of the community members who were unaware of the dynamics that were not being brought to light,” Stier said.
California’s political watchdog commission on Thursday finalized a $31,500 fine against Gov. Gavin Newsom, alleging that the Democratic leader failed to report three dozen behested payments totaling $5.5 million mostly to support wildfire recovery by the deadline under state law.
The Political Reform Act requires elected officials to disclose payments of $5,000 or more that they solicit or direct others to give to a charitable, legislative or governmental purpose within 30 days.
The California Fair Political Practices Commission said 34 of the violations were for failing to report on time that Newsom and his staff directed outreach from companies and foundations that wanted to help after the Los Angeles wildfires to the California Fire Foundation. The nonprofit was started in 1987 by the California Professional Firefighters to support the families of fallen firefighters and communities impacted by fire.
The donations include $1 million from the Chuck Lorre Foundation and $500,000 apiece from Lockheed Martin, the Anthem Blue Cross Foundation and BlackRock, among others gifts.
The governor also failed in 2024 to report on time two behested payments, totaling $100,000 from the Schmidt Family Foundation and Schwab Charitable Funds to the Institute for Local Government, a nonprofit within the League of California Cities.
The commission said the governor reported all of the payments “prior to public discovery” or contact from its enforcement division, which it considered a mitigating factor. Newsom also signed the stipulation and agreed to the fine.
Tara Gallegos, a spokesperson for Newsom’s office, said the issue involved late paperwork at a time when the governor’s staff was focused on emergency response and supporting survivors. She also underscored the fact that the reports were filed before he was contact by the FPPC.
Gallegos said the fine is unrelated to an alleged investigation into the governor and his wife by the Department of Justice, which Newsom announced this week.
Newsom alleged Monday that Trump is using the government as a political weapon to target him and his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom. Newsom announced the investigation after he learned that the FBI and Internal Revenue Service asked his associates questions about nonprofits and businesses related to the couple.
The governor’s office characterized the investigation as a fishing expedition. The Trump administration declined to comment.
A source familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly, said two federal probes have been going on for about a year, and that they originated not from Washington, D.C., but from conversations between whistleblowers and federal prosecutors based in Sacramento. The probes are linked to Newsom’s former chief-of-staff, Dana Williamson, and Siebel Newsom’s taxes, the source said.
The FPPC violations mark the second time Newsom has reported payments late, which increased his penalty for the new infractions. The commission fined Newsom in 2024 for failing to timely report 18 payments totaling $14.4 million.
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