Former President Donald J. Trump has repeatedly tried to appeal to Christian voters in recent weeks by accusing the Biden administration of criminalizing Americans because of their faith.
On several occasions this month, Mr. Trump has claimed that President Biden has “persecuted” Catholics in particular. Mr. Biden himself is Catholic.
‘I don’t know what’s going on with the Catholics,’ Mr Trump said at a rally in Coralville, Iowa. “They are violently and viciously attacking Catholics. »
Mr. Trump repeated similar comments a few days later, during another gathering, in Waterloo, and in a video Posted before Christmas, he declared that “Americans of faith are being persecuted like nothing this nation has ever seen.”
The message fits into a broader theme for Mr. Trump, who – facing criminal charges in connection with his bid to rise to power after losing the 2020 election and facing criticism for praising of strongmen – attempted to portray Mr. Biden and the Democrats as the real threats to democracy.
Here’s a closer look at his claims.
WHAT WAS SAID
“Under the leadership of Twisted Joe Biden, Christians and Americans of faith are being persecuted like nothing this country has ever seen before. Catholics in particular are being targeted and evangelicals are surely on the watch list as well.
– in a video on Truth Social this month
FAKE. Experts say they have no data to support the idea that Catholics in the United States are being persecuted by the government for their faith — let alone at record levels.
“In terms of the evidence, I find it quite difficult to support the idea that there is a concerted and marked increase in a particular type of targeting of Christians,” said Jason Bruner, professor of religious studies. at Arizona State University and a historian. who studies Christian persecution.
Instead, Mr. Bruner said, it is very likely that Mr. Trump is extrapolating from cases — for example, churches that were sanctioned for gathering during the Covid pandemic or anti-abortion activists who have been accused of crimes – to suggest a systemic problem.
“There is a long history of discrimination against Catholics in the United States, from the inception of this law until the 1970s,” said Frank Ravitch, a professor of law and religion at Michigan State University. . “And on the contrary, it’s probably better now in terms of non-discrimination than it ever, probably, ever was.”
Mr. Trump’s claims, Mr. Ravitch said, show “such incredible blindness to the history of anti-Catholicism in the United States.”
Advocates who track Christians fleeing persecution around the world note that the Biden administration has been gradually increasing the number of refugees admitted to the United States after their numbers fell precipitously during the Trump era. At the end of the 2023 financial year, the country checked in about 31,000 Christian refugee arrivals – about half of all refugees and the highest number recorded since fiscal year 2016. (Not all were necessarily fleeing persecution for religious reasons.)
“We are encouraged by this trajectory,” said Matthew Soerens, vice president of advocacy and policy at World Relief, a Christian humanitarian organization that has pushed the Biden administration to establish policies that welcome people who face faith-based discrimination.
The Trump campaign did not respond to requests for sources behind its claims.
WHAT WAS SAID
“For the past three years, the Biden administration has sent SWAT teams to arrest pro-life activists. »
– in a video on Truth Social this month
It’s misleading. The Justice Department has launched a growing number of criminal prosecutions under a law that makes it a crime to interfere with reproductive health care by blocking entrances, using threats or damaging property. In at least one case, the family of an accused claims he was arrested by a “SWAT” team, but the Federal Bureau of Investigation said that was not the case.
The law is called Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or FACE and was signed into law in 1994. Federal prosecutors have used it to bring 24 criminal cases, involving 55 defendants, since January 2021, according to the Justice Department.
Although the majority of these cases involved acts committed in establishments providing abortion services, prosecutors also used them to load several people which supported access to abortion and targeted centers in Florida offering pregnancy counseling and alternatives to abortion.
Moreover, Mr. Trump forgets that such arrests are not aimed at “pro-life” activism but at specific actions, including violence, that prosecutors say were attempts to block access to reproductive health services or interfere with them.
In one case, federal prosecutors accused a man for allegedly using a slingshot to shoot metal ball bearings at a Chicago-area Planned Parenthood clinic. In another case, prosecutors said a New York man used locks and glue to prevent a clinic gate from opening. And three men were accused of bombing a clinic in California; one recently pleaded guilty.
Mr. Trump’s claims about the use of “SWAT teams” may refer to the 2022 arrest of a Catholic activist in Pennsylvania. The defendant, Mark Houck, was accused with shoving a volunteer at a Planned Parenthood center in Philadelphia in 2021. Mr. Houck’s defense maintained that he was responding to the abusive comments made by the volunteer towards his 12-year-old son. He was acquitted earlier this year.
Republican lawmakers criticized Mr. Houck’s arrest by armed agents, but the FBI rejected the claim that he used a SWAT team and said its tactics were consistent with standard practice.
“Inaccurate allegations have been made regarding the arrest of Mark Houck,” the FBI said in a statement. “No SWAT teams or SWAT operators were involved. FBI agents knocked on Mr. Houck’s front door, identified themselves as FBI agents, and asked him to exit the residence. He did so and was taken into custody without incident pursuant to an indictment.
Christopher A. Wray, the director of the FBI, questioned about the circumstances of Mr. Houck’s arrestsaid these decisions are made at the local level, “by career officers on the ground, who have the closest visibility to the circumstances.”
WHAT WAS SAID
“The FBI has been caught profiling devout Catholics as possible domestic terrorists and planning to send undercover spies into Catholic churches, just like in the good old days of the Soviet Union. »
– in a video on Truth Social this month
This requires context. Mr. Trump was probably referring to a leak January memo prepared by the FBI Field Office in Richmond, Virginia, which warned of the potential for extremism by adherents of a “radical, traditionalist Catholic” ideology. The Republicans have critical the memo for months.
But the memo was withdrawn and the nation’s top law enforcement officials have repeatedly denounced it.
The memo warned of potential threats as the 2024 elections approach and suggested gathering information and developing sources within churches to help identify suspicious activity. He also makes a distinction between the radicalized and the non-radicalized, saying that “radical-traditionalist Catholics” constitute a small minority.
Some researchers believe these concerns have merit, even if the memo was wrong. Mr. Ravitch, a professor at Michigan State University, said he thought the agents made a mistake by focusing on Catholicism. “What they are really talking about is an extremely radical category of Christian nationals,” he said, emphasizing that they are a small subgroup and are not representative of the Roman Catholic Church. or evangelicals.
Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said at a congressional hearing in September, he said he was “appalled” by the memo and that “Catholics are not extremists.” He called suggestions that the government was targeting Americans because of their faith “scandalous,” referring to the fact that his own family fled Europe to escape pre-Holocaust anti-Semitism.
And earlier this month during a Senate hearing, Mr. Wray said of the document: “This particular intelligence product is something that, as soon as I saw it, I was appalled. I had it removed.
In a statement released this week, the FBI reiterated: “Any claim that the FBI targets Catholics is false. »
Curious about the accuracy of a statement? Email factcheck@nytimes.com.
