DOJ settles with pardoned pro-life activist over FACE Act prosecution; more may follow

(OSV News) — One of the 23 pro-life activists pardoned by President Donald Trump in 2025 for violating the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or FACE Act, has reached a settlement with the federal government.

Paul Vaughn, of Centerville, Tennessee, an evangelical Christian, had been convicted for his participation in an abortion clinic blockade in Mount Juliet, Tennessee, in March 2021. In court, federal prosecutors said Vaughn and another activist stalled Mount Juliet police with offers of negotiations as a delay tactic.

“Our family is thankful for the journey and trials God has seen us through,” Vaughn said in an email to OSV News. “We mourn for the state of our nation where stories like this are becoming common, but we are thankful for the clarity this brings as we assess the character of our nation and areas of ministry opportunities.”

Vaughn said the amount of the settlement, for both the prosecution and a predawn raid by FBI agents at Vaughn’s house, was seven figures, which will be distributed among Vaughn, his wife, Bethany, and seven of his children who were at home at the time FBI agents raided their house.

More settlements through the Department of Justice, possibly for all the other 22, are expected to follow in the coming months.

“We are working with other clients but not at liberty to discuss the details,” Katie Clancy, communications director for the Thomas More Society, the Chicago-based religious liberty firm that brought the case, told OSV News July 28.

Vaughn and five others were convicted in January 2024 for their role in the Mount Juliet abortion clinic blockade. At the time of the Trump pardon, the father of 11 had completed six months of house arrest and had begun three years of supervised release.

Trump’s pardons also marked the end of a legal saga that began in 2022 after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, returning the matter of restricting or regulating abortion to the legislative branch. That year, a DOJ task force asked federal attorneys to charge activists who blockaded abortion clinics or otherwise interfered with clinic access with violating the FACE Act, even if they had already been previously convicted for trespassing at the clinics.

This led to three major prosecutions, including the one involving the Mount Juliet clinic. The best-known of the other two involved a 2020 abortion clinic blockade in Washington organized under the auspices of a group called Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising, which included Catholics, evangelicals and atheists. In 2023, Lauren Handy of Alexandria, Virginia, a Catholic who led the effort, received the longest prison sentence of any of the FACE Act defendants: 57 months. She had been incarcerated in Florida when pardoned.

The final DOJ prosecution ended in August 2024 when seven activists, all evangelicals, were convicted for obstructing the entrance to an abortion clinic in Sterling Heights, Michigan, in 2020.

The Thomas More Society declared in a statement that the government’s settlement with Vaughn affirms the DOJ and FBI under the Biden administration engaged in an abuse of power.

“This family did nothing wrong. Paul prayed and sang. He bore witness to his faith and for that, the full weight of the federal government was brought crashing down on his front door before the sun rose,” Steve Crampton, senior counsel at Thomas More Society, said in a statement.

Crampton’s statement called the settlement “a warning and a precedent. The weaponization of federal law enforcement against pro-lifers, against people of faith, against those who dare to stand for the unborn — that era is over.”

The day after Trump’s pardon of the 23 pro-life activists, the DOJ announced the FACE Act would only be applied “in extraordinary circumstances, or in cases presenting significant aggravating factors, such as death, serious bodily harm, or serious property damage.”

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