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(LifeSiteNews) — Ryan-Marie Houck, the Catholic homeschooling mother of seven and wife of the pro-life leader who was arrested by the FBI in a dramatic raid on Friday, spoke about the “devastating” experience to Fox News titan Tucker Carlson on Wednesday night, telling him the incident “traumatized” her young family.

LifeSiteNews broke the now-viral story of Mark Houck’s Friday arrest shortly after it took place. As LifeSite reported, heavily-armed FBI agents surrounded the Houck family’s rural Pennsylvania home early Friday morning, reportedly terrorizing their seven children before taking Houck into custody.

The arrest stemmed from an alleged altercation between Houck and an abortion clinic “escort” outside a downtown Philadelphia Planned Parenthood abortion facility last year where Houck, a pro-life sidewalk counselor, was protesting along with his then-12-year-old son. Prosecutors allege Houck assaulted the employee, but Houck’s attorney and wife say he pushed the man to protect his son, whom the man had been “harassing” using “crude …  inappropriate and disgusting” language.

On Wednesday, Ryan-Marie Houck told Carlson the 7 a.m. Friday raid “was devastating.”

“It’s hard to even express the victimization and, you know, how traumatized we all are due to this unnecessary thing that happened to us,” the Catholic mother said, estimating that between 20-30 FBI agents in at least 15 vehicles surrounded the family’s property that morning before taking her husband into custody.

According to Ryan-Marie, the “entire front yard” of the family’s “large property” was barely visible that morning due to “at least 15 big trucks and cars” and “20, 25, 30 men, women, completely in jackets with shields and helmets and guns” occupying the yard.

“It was, I mean, something I never would expect to see on my front lawn,” she said. “It was crazy.”

Asked how the family’s seven children were handling the trauma from the raid, Ryan-Marie said “it’s hard to tell.”

“The older ones, we can talk, we can cry. We’ve, you know, we’ve had some counseling. We have some more counseling to do,” she explained. “And the little ones, they’re scared. They’re scared. There’s a lot of crying and a lot of unrestful sleep. A lot of kids in our bed at night and in the morning.”

Carlson responded by expressing his hope that “every one of those agents who showed up at your home with automatic weapons is watching this and feeling deep shame.”

RELATED: FBI raid on pro-life dad Mark Houck: Part of the Biden admin’s terror campaign against conservative Christians

Mark Houck’s attorney, Thomas More Society vice president and senior counsel Peter Breen, also joined the show Wednesday night. 

Breen told Carlson the FBI raid on his client was “reckless and outrageous,” and “put the Houck family in unnecessary danger.”

Breen explained that as Houck’s legal representative, he had reached out to the Department of Justice (DOJ) to offer to bring Houck in before the raid but received no response.

The decision to ignore the offer and instead execute a guns-drawn FBI raid, “dragging the head of the family out, violating the sanctity of the home, pointing guns at them,” was, according to Breen, “outrageous and uncalled for.”

Breen also confirmed to Carlson that the Philadelphia District Attorney had refused to press charges when the case against Houck was originally brought in October 2021. He said the alleged victim had also filed a private criminal complaint, which was tossed out of the local court system “because the guy couldn’t be bothered to show up for the hearings.”

“So the local court system, which is where if there were a crime committed on that sidewalk, would have dealt with it, they said no. And so that is where this matter should have ended. This was not a federal crime,” Breen said.

According to the attorney, Houck’s case is one in which the DOJ has “taken an innocent man and made an example out of him, presumably to send a message to pro-life people and people of faith across this country.”

RELATED: Republican congressmen demand Merrick Garland answer for FBI raid on pro-life dad Mark Houck

Houck now faces two felony charges of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, which could lead to up to 11 years in prison and fines totaling as much as $350,000. Houck was ordered to surrender or refrain from obtaining a passport or firearms as a condition of his release on $10,000 bail on Friday.

On Tuesday, Houck pleaded not guilty to both charges lodged against him.

Breen told Carlson that the entire Thomas More Society team has been put on the case and they’ve “hired the best criminal defense attorney in Philadelphia,” “because if we can push back against the Department of Justice here, we can get them to stop, not do this again to someone else.”

People interested in helping the family can visit www.defendlifetoday.com. A GiveSendGo fundraiser has also been set up for the Houck family.

Follow LifeSiteNews’ ongoing reporting on Mark Houck’s story HERE.<

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