Christian Nationalists hosted two National Prayer Breakfasts yesterday. The first took place in the U.S. Capitol, a travesty organized by Speaker Mike Johnson which “divides America along religious lines and flouts the equality our Constitution enshrines,” as U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) and I wrote last year. Apparently, this wasn’t enough. So the second prayer breakfast occurred off government property and appears to have been organized by the shadowy group known as The Family.
At this second prayer breakfast, Trump announced his plans for a new federal task force to fight anti-Christian bias. Americans United immediately responded.
Trump justified the task force with two pieces of disinformation. First is the myth of Christian persecution and anti-Christian bias in America. Second is a specific case that Trump trotted out: the criminal conviction of Paula Paulette Harlow.
Harlow’s case is not an example of anti-Christian bias; it’s an example of our justice system not extending special treatment to Harlow simply because she’s a Christian. In other words, it’s precisely how things are supposed to work. And because the system worked as it should — jailing a Christian who knowingly violated the law in an effort to further political goals that align with Trump’s party — Trump pardoned her.
Trump spun Harlow’s story as one of persecution and his benevolent pardon at the prayer breakfast:
“Paulette Harlow was sentenced to 2 years in prison for peacefully praying outside of a clinic, charged under an obscure law that hadn’t been used in years, selectively weaponized against Christians by the previous administration. … At her sentencing, the judge mocked Paulette’s Christian faith. Exactly 2 weeks ago, it was my honor to grant Paulette and other persecuted Christians, about 23 of them, a full and unconditional pardon.”
Harlow’s actions were not peaceful and not outside of a clinic.
Harlow helped plan and execute a forceful blockade of a reproductive health clinic in Washington, D.C., in October 2020, during the run-up to the presidential election and when COVID cases topped 9 million nationally. One of Harlow’s co-conspirators booked a sham appointment and when they were given access, Harlow and others forced their way in. One coconspirator shoved a nurse, severely injuring the nurse’s ankle. A “melee” ensued.
Harlow purposefully fell on the clinic manager, forcefully shoving the employee into a waiting-room chair. Harlow and nine others blockaded the clinic doors using their bodies, furniture, ropes, and locks and chains, which Harlow herself advocated for during their planning meetings, according to the evidence.
The group livestreamed the assault on health care and on patients exercising their most basic rights, shutting the clinic down for 2.5 hours and giving the court plenty of evidence for convictions. They refused to cooperate with law enforcement officers. Of the prosecution, Harlow told Fox News, “I consider it an incredible honor … And I considered going to court an incredible honor.”
In June 2024, the court sentenced Harlow to 24 months.
Harlow’s attack was not “outside of a clinic” as Trump said. Nor was this attack peaceful — people were hurt. Patients were robbed of their constitutional rights for several hours. And even the praying and hymn-singing, which may seem innocuous, is anything but when we remember maskless singing transmitted a deadly virus at that time and church congregations that ignored public health orders were among the worst hit.
Harlow was found guilty of civil rights conspiracy and Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act violations. Trump’s objection to the conspiracy law as “obscure” is odd, given that a grand jury indicted him under the same conspiracy law after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. Congress passed the FACE Act in 1994 to ensure that patients could access health care, which is precisely what Harlow prevented. Hers is a textbook case under the act, which specifically applies to reproductive health care facilities because they are so frequently targeted.
Nor has this law, which is hardly “obscure,” been weaponized. An examination of Westlaw data for cases citing the FACE Act suggests that the frequency, while slightly higher recently, is in line with previous administrations and certainly not as high as the peak. Anti-abortion activists ramped up their activities after Trump’s first election and as the potential overturning of Roe v. Wade appeared more likely, so additional prosecutions for FACE act violations makes sense.
There’s nothing selective about this prosecution; FACE is simply the law that Harlow and her coconspirators violated. This is rather like complaining that laws against theft selectively target thieves.
The full transcript of the sentencing hearing is not yet readily available (AU lawyers are on it), though snippets appear online. The government began by rightly noting “that this case is not about the defendant’s personal beliefs. It is about her role in violating the civil rights of people she did not know. It’s about her role in crossing the line from peaceful protest into violent obstruction of reproductive healthcare.”
Harlow argued her health issues should mean that she not be incarcerated. Harlow’s attorney raised her health, and the relationship between Harlow and her husband, saying: “That speaks volumes, not only for the love between these two people, but … that he [Harlow’s husband] doesn’t think she is going to live without him. Now, time will only tell.”
Up to this point, Harlow had been on house arrest. During this sentencing, she claimed a right to attend Mass, which the government also opposed.
In other words, Harlow raised both her religion and her marriage as issues in the sentencing proceeding.
The judge addressed both in her final remarks:
“I would say one other thing. Obviously, looking [at] the letters, you have a very loving relationship with your husband, and you’re obviously a very religious person. And I would suggest that, in terms of your religion, that one of the tenets is that you should make the effort during this period of time, when it may be difficult in terms of for your husband, to make every effort to remain alive, to do the things that you need to do to survive, because that’s part of the tenets of your religion, and it’s something that I think you would want to do for your husband, so that during this period of time, once you get release, the two of you can be back together.”
Without hearing the tone and seeing the body language, those words can be read several ways. If you’ve been primed by Trump or Fox News or a polemicist on social media or a narrative about Christian persecution, you might read (or misread) them as hostile.
I read them as compassionate — a judge sharing her humanity with an aged criminal defendant. This interpretation is bolstered by the fact that the sentencing guidelines called for a sentence of 33 to 41 months, about 50% more than the 24-month sentence the judge imposed.
To suggest that the judge was mocking Harlow’s faith is, at best, disingenuous. Harlow is Catholic. For what it’s worth, the sentencing judge, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, appears to be Catholic, too. She attended Georgetown Prep (a Catholic high school) and the Catholic University of America for both undergrad and law school. She was first nominated to the bench (D.C. Superior Court) by President Ronald Reagan then later to the federal bench by President Bill Clinton.
If the judge is Catholic, she did not allow her personal religious beliefs to dictate her judicial decisions, which is precisely what we want — and what our Constitution demands. And if Kollar-Kotelly is Catholic too, she’d hardly be mocking her own faith.
While government officials persecuting Christians is a popular attack line for Christian Nationalists, it often ends up being disproven as disinformation.
Christian Nationalism is an entire identity based on disinformation, as I’ve explained elsewhere. So it’s little surprise that Trump’s anti-Christian bias task force — which we believe will misuse religious freedom to justify bigotry and discrimination — is similarly based on disinformation.
Supporters of Americans United understand that “when an institution lives only by lies, truth is revolutionary.” Trump’s task force is a new institution built on lies and disinformation. One of the best ways to fight back against it is to share. Don’t despair, share. Share the truth. Share this article with your friends, family, and your networks. Talk about this task force and tell the truth. In times like this, that simple act is revolutionary.
The quick and comprehensive research of AU’s Legal Department made this blog possible. Several sources were invaluable:
