The presidency of Joe Biden was a dark, though relatively brief, chapter in American history, replete with widespread prosecution and persecution of American Christians. President Donald Trump repeatedly pledged on the campaign trail to establish a federal task force to investigate and eradicate the anti-Christian bias evinced and enacted by the Biden administration, and has delivered on that promise. On Thursday morning, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) published a 209-page report entitled, “Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias within the Federal Government,” detailing not only the numerous abuses of the Biden administration but also the remedies put in place by the Trump administration.

“Our Nation’s origin and system of government bear the imprint of a Christian worldview and ethic, even as its laws protect religious pluralism. Christian beliefs, in conjunction with contemporary political thought and economic realities, influenced colonial settlers in their decision to overthrow tyranny and pursue independence,” the report’s introduction states. “After the Revolutionary War, Christians then informed the structure and contents of the United States Constitution, its amendments, and contemporaneous state constitutions.”

“But, when Christian beliefs about morality and human nature conflicted with the Biden Administration’s views, religious rights often suffered,” the report’s introduction continues. “The Biden Administration generally tolerated religious beliefs that were privately held but zealously pursued actions to limit Christians’ ability to act in accordance with their faith. This affected matters of deep personal importance to nearly every American: life, family, marriage, and self-identity,” it continues. “The Biden Administration’s policies regularly clashed with a Christian worldview and burdened traditional religious practices. These conflicts frequently arose over abortion, gender ideology, and sexual orientation. Ultimately, the Biden Administration penalized Christians who lived in accordance with their beliefs.”

The report details 14 “key findings” regarding the Biden administration’s abuse of power and violation of religious liberties, ranging from a two-tiered justice system and aggressive prosecution of pro-life activists to the coercive violation of conscience rights and the rabid promotion of LGBT ideology. The taskforce also identifies several “remedies” that the Trump administration has enacted to ensure that the federal government is not weaponized against American Christians.

“No American should live in fear that the federal government will punish them for their faith,” said Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, chair of the Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias, in a statement. He said that the Biden administration’s actions “devastated the lives of many Christian Americans,” adding, “That devastation ended with President Trump. The Department of Justice will continue to expose bad actors who targeted Christians and work tirelessly to restore religious liberty for all Americans of faith.”

During an appearance on “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” Thursday, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Camille Varone further emphasized that the report was “a whole of government effort,” noting that “the task force has 17 cabinet level members and other agency heads. But there were other agencies who were hearing about the work we were doing and were excited to participate. And so the report has findings from far more than just the task force members.”

Below are the report’s key findings and the Trump administration’s proposed actions to eradicate anti-Christian bias from the federal government.

FACE Act Weaponization

The DOJ previously published a report tracking how the Biden administration used the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act to aggressively target pro-life Americans, while largely ignoring the law’s provisions protecting pro-life pregnancy resource centers and houses of worship. The new report characterizes the Biden administration’s DOJ as “an enforcement arm” for the abortion industry.

Over the course of Biden’s tenure in the White House, his DOJ “routinely” collaborated with pro-abortion non-governmental organizations (NGOs) — chiefly the National Abortion Federation, Planned Parenthood, and the Feminist Majority Foundation — to prosecute pro-life Americans. The Biden DOJ would regularly request information from the abortion agencies relating to pro-life protests, prayer vigils, and other pro-life activities. In several cases, the Biden DOJ would even launch prosecutions at the request of pro-abortion NGOs, all while “mostly disregard[ing] pro-life groups.”

Varone also observed that “non-governmental organizations could poke around on the internet in ways that the department couldn’t. There were so many different documents that we found from the National Abortion Federation and Planned Parenthood compiling dossiers where they were monitoring pro-life Americans — collecting information about their travel, their whereabouts, their social media posts, including posting of Bible verses. There were even information about the cars that they drove and photos of some of their children. And they compiled all of this to give it to the Department of Justice, to the people who were charged with prosecuting under the FACE Act in case something might happen [that the DOJ may view as a potential crime.”

The Biden DOJ also withheld evidence requested by defense attorneys for pro-lifers and regularly pursued harsher penalties for pro-lifers than for pro-abortion activists. “The Biden DOJ pursued significantly higher sentences (near the top range of sentencing guidelines) for pro-life defendants, while pursuing more lenient sentences against the handful of pro-abortion defendants that it charged,” the report notes. On average, the Biden DOJ requested an average sentence of 26.8 months for the 21 pro-life defendants it successfully prosecuted, while requesting an average sentence of only 12.3 months for the six pro-abortion defendants it prosecuted. The most stringent sentence was handed to Lauren Handy, who was sentenced to 58 months (nearly five years) in prison. The Biden DOJ originally requested that she be sentenced to 78 months (six-and-a-half years).

Upon taking office last year, Trump pardoned the pro-life activists targeted by the Biden administration and directed his DOJ to dismiss “with prejudice” three civil lawsuits against pro-life defendants. The Trump DOJ also issued a directive ordering that prosecutors “may only bring FACE Act civil actions and prosecutions in extraordinary circumstances or in cases presenting significant aggravating factors.”

Targeting Traditionalist Catholics

In 2023, it was revealed that the Biden administration’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) illegally targeted American Catholics devoted to the Extraordinary Form of the Mass, the liturgy celebrated prior to the Second Vatican Council, and even spied on traditionalist Catholic parishes. The FBI’s Richmond, Virginia, field office drafted a memo labeling “radical traditionalist Catholics” as potential “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists” and detailing plans to infiltrate and spy on traditionalist Catholic parishes. While the Trump DOJ notes that the FBI’s Weaponization Working Group will release a more in-depth report “detailing the day-to-day weaponization of the Richmond Field Office against conservative, practicing Catholics on the basis of guilt-by-association because one career criminal attended a local Catholic church,” the DOJ’s report provides an “overview” of the discrimination.

Citing the recently-indicted Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the Richmond field office labeled traditionalist Catholics as potential “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists” and began crafting its memo, which was originally intended to be circulated nationwide across the agency. The arrest of career criminal Xavier Louis Lopez for possession of weapons including Molotov cocktails, improvised napalm, and hollow-point bullets provided an opportunity for the Richmond FBI to target a Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) parish with which Lopez was affiliated. Although Our Lady of Fatima parish in Richmond “played no role whatsoever in Lopez’s acquisition or possession of the destructive devices,” the FBI interviewed the pastor, Father James Hewko, who asked to speak with the parish’s legal representation before speaking to the FBI about Lopez. The FBI subsequently monitored both Hewko and his uncle, in addition to interviewing and monitoring others associated with the parish.

Trump’s FBI Director, Kash Patel, has vowed that this “weaponization and politicization of law enforcement” will never be “allowed to happen again.” The FBI’s Weaponization Working Group will disclose further details.

Targeting Concerned Parents

In 2021, as parents across the country were voicing their discontent with radical LGBT policies at local school board meetings, Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland, issued a DOJ-wide memo alleging that parents who protest at local school board meetings should be treated as potentially violent domestic extremists. Garland recommended forming a DOJ task force to explore the use of domestic terrorism statutes against parents and “recommended that United States Attorney’s Offices and FBI Field Offices coordinate with local law enforcement and school districts, and that the FBI’s National Threat Operations Center assist by directing credible threats to appropriate law enforcement partners.”

Although some within the DOJ warned that the actions of parents at school board meetings were almost certainly protected under the First Amendment and, even when parents did take action that constituted crimes, those crimes were often not federal offenses. “Those concerns did not win the day,” the Trump DOJ’s report notes. Garland revised his memo, but still urged the Biden DOJ to target concerned parents, who were characterized as “threats” to school boards. The Biden DOJ “quickly acted to follow through.” While the Biden DOJ’s criminal division was “skeptical,” Garland and his team forged ahead with plans to prosecute parents who protested at school board meetings via “possible application of color of law provisions that criminalize conduct that interfere with those participating in programs receiving federal financial assistance.”

Investigation of Christian Charities

Under Biden, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) weaponized the Johnson Amendment against Christian nonprofit organizations. The Johnson Amendment is a U.S. tax code provision prohibiting most nonprofit organizations from endorsing or explicitly opposing political candidates. Biden’s IRS, the Trump DOJ’s report explains, used the Johnson Amendment to target “Christian churches and non-profit institutions, particularly those who espoused traditional Christian views that could be construed with a political valence, scrutinizing their statements for violations.”

The Biden IRS seemingly singled out churches and nonprofit organizations that were characterized as supportive of Republican candidates and conservative issues, while failing to apply the Johnson Amendment to churches and nonprofit organizations aligned or affiliated with Democrats, even those that explicitly supported Democratic candidates or politicians. The investigations were not limited to the speech of pastors, but sought wide-ranging information on the finances and operations of targeted churches and nonprofit organizations. “The Biden IRS’s pattern of enforcement,” the Trump DOJ’s report says, “raised serious concerns about the IRS attempting to regulate what certain pastors could say from the pulpit and chilled the speech of many other clergy.”

The Trump administration’s Treasury Department has subsequently revised its standards for application of the Johnson Amendment, clarifying that houses of worship can communicate to their congregations regarding moral and political matters in accord with their respective teachings without falling afoul of the Johnson Amendment. “Bona fide communications internal to a house of worship, between the house of worship and its congregation, in connection with religious services,” neither “participate” nor “intervene” in political campaigns, “any more than does a family discussion concerning candidates.”

Fining Christian Universities

The Biden administration’s Department of Education levied hefty fines against Christian colleges and universities, while largely failing to pursue similar penalties against secular, non-religious institutions for similar regulatory violations. According to the Trump DOJ’s report, the “average fine against a Christian school was $815,000, compared to $228,571 against public and private institutions.” The two largest fines levied against Christian universities were against Grand Canyon University ($37.7 million) and Liberty university ($14 million).

The fines against Liberty University were for supposed violations of the Clery Act, which provides the public with information regarding a university’s safety. The Trump DOJ’s report notes that the fines against Grand Canyon University and Liberty University “dwarfed the fines levied against Pennsylvania State University ($2.4 million) for 11 Clery Act violations involving the school’s failure to report sex offenses relating to its assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky’s serial child molestation, and against Michigan State University ($4.5 million) for its failure to disclose sex offenses committed by Larry Nassar, a team physician who sexually assaulted hundreds of athletes.”

Under the Trump administration, the Department of Education has not only dismissed its case against Grand Canyon University, but rescinded its fine and has “also committed to no longer disproportionately targeting Christian colleges and universities and to affirming the rights of Christian colleges and universities to act in accordance with their faith-based identity.”

Conscience Violations

In numerous cases, the Biden administration also failed or refused to prosecute federal conscience violation cases, allowing institutions to coerce Christians into violating their sincerely held religious beliefs or penalizing them for adhering to their Christian morals. In one example, the Biden DOJ dropped a lawsuit against the University of Vermont Medical Center for compelling Christian employees to participate in committing abortions.

“This case is emblematic of the Biden Administration’s approach to conscience enforcement: When the scope of federal protections was legally contested, the Administration generally chose the interpretation least protective of religious objectors and resolved active enforcement matters through administrative means, if possible, rather than litigation,” the Trump DOJ’s report comments. “Government inaction of this kind is an especially damaging source of anti-Christian bias precisely because it is difficult to see and harder to remedy.”

Anti-Christian Policy

The Biden administration’s anti-Christian bias was not relegated to enforcement actions, but also to policy choices. The administration supported the “Equality Act,” which would have “fully eliminate[d] statutory religious protections for Christians and other religions that hold traditional social values” by barring, without exemption, “discrimination” on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity in areas such as public accommodations and facilities, education, federal funding, employment, housing, credit, and the jury system. Although numerous academics and religious leaders warned that the legislation would amount to a significant infringement on First Amendment rights, the Biden administration forcefully supported the legislation in Congress.

“Although the Biden Administration was ultimately unsuccessful in its push to enact the Equality Act, it sought to implement the same policy goals wherever possible through executive actions, guidance memoranda, and rulemakings,” the Trump DOJ’s report announced. The administration’s “overbroad” application of the U.S. Supreme Court’s holding in Bostock v. Clayton County targeted Christians and Christian organizations for their biblical worldview on biological sex and human sexuality, while Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) worked overtime to entrench transgender ideology in the federal bureaucracy and classify gender transition procedures as necessary and life-saving medicine.

Biden’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) “dismissed sincerely held religious beliefs regarding sexual orientation and gender identity as ‘discrimination in hiring … cloaked as religious practice,’” while the Department of Education likewise shifted its non-discrimination policies to promote and hide gender transition procedures for children. The Departments of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Labor, and Agriculture all similarly revised their guidance on key statutes and legal precedents, such as Bostock and Titles VII, IX, and X of the Civil Rights Act, to shield progressive agenda items.

In many cases, when Christians and other professionals or professional organizations suggested, based on empirical evidence and research, that gender transition procedures (especially for children) may not be harmless or beneficial, the Biden administration and its agencies often sidelined or outright silenced those voices, or ignored them. For example, when the British government published the extensive Cass Review, detailing the significant dangers posed by exposing minors to gender transition procedures and ultimately terminating the British government’s support for the practice, the Biden administration “maintained that the report did not alter their support for minors’ access to sex-rejecting procedures and medical intervention.”

The Biden administration’s policy decisions also encouraged state and local governments to bar Christian couples from participating in foster programs, claiming that the couples’ sincerely held religious beliefs on biological sex or human sexuality would pose a threat to children who identify as transgender or homosexual. Other actions targeted talk-based Christian therapy designed to assist those struggling with unwanted same-sex attraction and even attempted to bar Christians from practicing therapy in many areas.

Numerous executive actions were also taken by the Biden administration to proliferate the practice of abortion, even after the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling overturning Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Biden administration actions attempted to skirt federal statutes barring taxpayer funding from being used for abortions and directly used federal agencies to facilitate abortions. The Biden administration regularly replaced departmental faith offices with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) offices and repeatedly sidelined Christians and Christian organizations.

Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS), for example, hosted 59 meetings and roundtables with non-Christian faith-based organizations to discuss potential terrorist threats and safety. The Biden DHS hosted only two such meetings with Christian organizations. The Trump DOJ referred to Family Research Council’s report on increasing hostility against Christians to note that the “disparity is notable given that Christians comprise an estimated 62 percent of the U.S. population and have faced increased hostility and violence in recent years.”

Other Biden administration actions that targeted Christians included adverse employment actions, such as eliminating religious discrimination safeguards in the EEOC and issuing blanket denials of religious exemption requests, particularly those related to COVID-19 restrictions and mandates. According to a survey of federal employees, nearly one third (30.1%) were denied pay based on their religious objections to COVID-19 mandates, while others were denied travel, reassigned, lost their security clearances, or were formally reprimanded. Nearly one fifth (18.3%) reported having been removed from their posts and nearly 12% said that they were fired.

What’s Next?

While the Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias will continue its work through 2027, it has already begun working to eradicate anti-Christian bias from the federal government. Pursuant to the taskforce’s recommendations, most federal agencies have opened and operate faith offices, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has issued memos reinforcing religious liberties, and the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) has issued guidance on religious liberty protections afforded by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, in addition to other actions taken by federal agencies. The task force will publish further remedial actions taken in its 2027 report.

Religious liberty advocates have thanked the Trump administration for its efforts to tackle the issue of anti-Christian bias and the weaponization of the federal government against Americans of faith, but have warned that there is still much work to be done. “This is a very good report on the pervasive anti-Christian bias under the Biden administration; capturing many of the domestic religious liberty concerns we have noticed in recent years, especially on marriage, family, sexuality, and life issues — as well as hostility against Christianity in general,” said Family Research Council President Tony Perkins in a statement. He noted that hostility towards Christians skyrocketed under Biden’s tenure, including violent attacks on pro-life pregnancy resource centers and Christian churches. “Yet, as this DOJ report shows, the Biden administration did very little in response and instead weaponized its resources to target Christians including imprisoning grandmothers praying outside of abortion centers.”

“This report does raise questions about what comes next. And what happens the next time a radical progressive like President Biden comes to power? We must ensure this targeting never happens again under any future administration,” Perkins asserted. “We must ensure that the bedrock of American society and culture is placed on a firm footing in which freedom is respected for everyone. What better time to do this than our nation’s 250th birthday? Religious freedom is seldom handed to the passive; it is claimed by those who exercise it even when a hostile culture says they may not.”

“Now is the time to take this insight and put in safeguards at the federal, state, and local levels that will prevent future Democrat administrations from hollowing out the First Amendment, making it difficult for them to pervert America,” Perkins continued. “Ultimately, the preventative prescription to anti-Christian bias from our own government is Christians sharing the gospel and living out their faith in a God honoring way. While we should press on the government to act justly, it’s up to the church to change the culture that has given rise to this anti-Christian bias.”

During “Washington Watch” Thursday, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Varone indicated that the DOJ is currently investigating whether leftist NGOs violated the law in their dealings with the Biden administration. “At minimum, it would violate best practices,” she noted. “And so we’d start with that. There are concerns that some of the conduct here may have gone further. I can’t get into specifics because DOJ handles all of its internal personnel and investigations privately. But as the report mentions, appropriate referrals have been made.”

Travis Weber, vice president for Policy and Government Affairs at FRC, said in comments to The Washington Stand, “With this report, President Trump and his administration have issued an important corrective to the anti-Christian bias that was tolerated, advanced, and/or enabled for too long by the Biden administration. Yet we must not stop here, but rather must determine next steps and consider how this hostility manifests in our culture and the local communities on which our country is knit together.” He added, “For America to flourish in the long-term, we must move beyond the political ‘see-saw’ we are currently on and regain that ‘common ground’ of national consensus on which freedom rests.”

“We must remember that what the Trump administration is responding to politically is — more deeply — a cultural and spiritual issue,” Weber observed. “We are often ‘responding’ to bias and hostility. Instead, we need to think proactively about how to shift our culture back toward a respect for freedom and faith — and the role that both play in society, for the benefit of ALL members of society. As the Trump administration considers what to do with the findings detailed in this report, Christians in America also need to be asking ourselves the same question: ‘What’s our next step?’”