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WASHINGTON, D.C (LifeSiteNews) – The White House affirmed on Tuesday its support for protesters gathering outside of conservative Supreme Court justices’ homes in support of abortion and in opposition to a potential reversal of Roe v. Wade.
A reporter asked Press Secretary Jen Psaki at Tuesday’s White House briefing to explain the difference between the swift response from the Department of Justice to concerns about parents speaking out at school board meetings and the apparently delayed action against abortion activists outside of justice’s homes. On Friday, she said the government did not “have an official U.S. government position on where people protest.”
Over the weekend, pro-abortion activists protested outside of the homes of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh. 200 abortion advocates gathered outside the home of Judge Alito on Monday night.
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“Does the president feel demonstrations outside of, say, Justice Alito’s home, are those attempts to interfere or intimidate,” the reporter asked.
Protestors give prepared speeches in front of the Supreme Court justices home. Doesn’t seem like the Alito family is here pic.twitter.com/hTIITu0aRh
— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) May 10, 2022
“The president’s long-standing view has been that violence, threats and intimidation of any kind, have no place in political discourse,” Psaki said. “We believe, of course, in peaceful protest.”
She then said she found it “interesting” that “voices on the right” had remained “silent for years” about protests outsides of the homes of school board members, the Michigan secretary of state’s home, abortion facilities, and the “insurrection against our capitol.”
She said the groups of activists standing outside of Supreme Court justice’s private residences had been “peaceful to date, and we certainly continue to encourage that outside of judges’ homes, and that’s the president’s position.”
The reporter asked specifically about the issue with protests in relation to a “pending court case” and repeated her previous examples.
Former federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy said the protests likely violate federal law against intimidation of federal judges.
18 U.S. Code § 1507 prohibits demonstrations outside “a building or residence occupied or used by such judge” with the “intent of influencing any judge.”
“They are elevating their political interest in portraying the draft Supreme Court opinion as extreme over their constitutional duty to execute the laws faithfully and protect both the Court and the justices,” McCarthy told Fox News about the refusal of the White House and Department of Justice to condemn the protests.
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He compared it to the DOJ memo directing the FBI to monitor parents at school board meetings, despite there not being a clear federal jurisdiction over the “threats of violence.”
“By contrast, the protection of the Supreme Court as an institution, and of the justices’ security, are patently federal matters over which federal law-enforcement has clear jurisdiction,” McCarthy told Fox News. “It is inexcusable that the Justice Department is so silent and passive now, when it was loud and active over a manufactured controversy as to which it had no jurisdiction.”
Abortion activists have repeatedly fallen back on violence against churches and conservative organizations.