FBI arrest of Pennsylvania pro-life activist 'stinks to high heaven,' former prosecutor says: 'Loser case'

The FBI’s arrest of Mark Houck, the pro-life Catholic father of seven who was arrested in Pennsylvania last week, is a "loser case" that appears to lack the "reasonable likelihood of success," according to a former prosecutor and legal expert. 

"If the facts as the government alleged them to be are true, that Houck essentially engaged in two incidences of simple assault against this so-called escort. I'm baffled that it would take the United States Department of Justice, where I used to work as a prosecutor, 337 days from the incident to the indictment, to prosecute somebody for two counts of a simple assault misdemeanor," Heritage Foundation senior legal fellow Cully Stimson told Fox News Digital in a phone interview Monday. 

"This is a loser case. And here's the strange thing about it. In the federal government, when you bring an indictment, you have to have a reasonable likelihood of success on the merits. That's the standard … And I think there are very real factual questions that raise the issue of self-defense. And then there's a statutory question of whether this so-called escort even falls within the FACE Act. And so I don't think there's a reasonable likelihood of success on the merits," Stimson said, noting that more facts might come out about the case in the coming days. 

Houck, a Catholic dad of seven who would often pray outside a Philadelphia abortion clinic, was arrested Friday at his rural Pennsylvania home in Kintnersville by the FBI. The arrest reportedly stems from an altercation he had with a Planned Parenthood escort in Philadelphia in October 2021. Houck is accused of pushing a 72-year-old man after the escort allegedly verbally harassed Houck's 12-year-old son outside the clinic.  

FBI ARREST OF PENNSYLVANIA PRO-LIFE ACTIVIST AN ATTACK ON 'PRO-LIFE CHRISTIANS,' SPOX SAYS 

The Philadelphia Police Department confirmed to Fox News Digital that officers responded to the Planned Parenthood on the afternoon of October 13 last year, but that no charges were filed against Houck, and he was not arrested. 

The 72-year-old man "was pushed to the ground" by Houck, which caused "a scrape to his right arm," a Philadelphia police spokesperson said. The Department of Justice press release on Houck’s arrest states he is "alleged to have twice assaulted a man because he was a volunteer reproductive health clinic escort."

Attorneys for Houck said that the Philadelphia district attorney declined to take up the case and that a private criminal claim filed by the 72-year-old was ultimately thrown out this summer. 

"Most likely, the local authorities didn’t file charges because, upon examining the facts, it was, at best, a case of ‘mutual combat’ in which two adults got out of hand and ended up in a minor scuffle. In such cases, typically neither party is charged, and the case goes away," Stimson and Hans Von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation, wrote in a commentary piece Monday. 

Stimson - who has worked as a prosecutor in San Diego and Maryland, and as an Assistant United States Attorney in the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia - noted that Houck has no criminal record.

WHAT IS THE FACE ACT AT THE CENTER OF PENNSYLVANIA PRO-LIFE ACTIVIST ASSAULT CASE?

"Normally what you would do for somebody with no criminal record, who's not a flight risk, is to contact his lawyer or contact a representative and say, 'Hey, by the way, you're going to be indicted, or you have been indicted. May we send you a copy of the indictment, and then present yourself to the Federal Court on this day? So you can be arraigned on the indictment?'" Stimson said. 

"But no. They send in essentially armed agents. Why over a dozen agents? Why not two? Three? You think the guy is going to come out, guns blazing with his kids in the house?"

Houck’s wife, Ryan-Marie Houck, spoke with the Catholic News Agency after her husband’s arrest and said that "a SWAT team of about 25 came to my house with about 15 vehicles and started pounding on our door."

Former spokesman for Houck, Brian Middleton, clarified on Monday to Fox News Digital that the FBI has denied the agents were part of a SWAT team and that Ryan-Marie Houck unintentionally used a technical term after witnessing the arrest of her husband. 

"It's not like up here where we live that we have FBI agents, you know, raiding people's homes all the time that we would be so astute that we would be able to recognize a SWAT guy from a regular FBI agent," Middleton said. 

PENNSYLVANIA PRO-LIFE ACTIVIST ARRESTED BY FBI, CHARGED WITH ASSAULTING CLINIC ESCORT

A senior FBI source previously told Fox News there may have been 15 to 20 agents at the scene, but denied 25 were there. The agents who came to the door had guns out and at the ready, according to this FBI source, but the guns were never pointed at Houck or his family and were lowered or holstered as soon as Houck was taken into custody.

FBI Philadelphia released a statement Monday denying a SWAT team or operators were involved in the arrest.  

"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," the statement said.

Former FBI special agent Stuart Kaplan noted to Fox News Digital on Monday that the FBI may have deployed a large contingent of agents because of knowledge that Houck had access to a firearm or out of an abundance of caution. 

"I can speak to that if there was any information that he may have been in possession of a firearm or had access to a firearm, or weapon" it would explain the numerous agents who were on the scene, Kaplan said. "People that are so passionate and so crazy over this… who knows what they may do to resort to escalating already a terrible situation. So there must have been some indication as to why they came with such a use of force."

Houck received a "target letter" from the Department of Justice in May alerting him that he was the target of a grand jury investigation for violating the Freedom of Access Clinic Entrances Act, or FACE Act. The law makes it a federal crime to use force with the intent to injure, intimidate and interfere with anyone because that person provides reproductive health care. 

GREGG JARRETT ON 'FOX & FRIENDS': DEMOCRATS' INCENDIARY RHETORIC WILL INEVITABLY LEAD TO VIOLENCE

Houck’s attorneys responded to the Justice Department's target letter after receiving it in May and offered to bring Houck to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, but did not receive word back from the office until after Houck was arrested on Friday, according to his lawyers. 

Stimson argued it is "pretty obvious" the FBI’s arrest of Houck "is a warning shot to the pro-life movement," and added that prosecuting people for violating the FACE Act is not common, but it does happen. 

"These facts really strain credulity. Why would it take 337 days to prosecute somebody for basically a couple of slaps on the face. When in fact, it's pretty obvious that this is a warning shot to the pro-life movement, and people who are pro-life, that we don't like the Dobbs decision, so we're just gonna drop the hammer."

Stimson argued that "the more interesting number is 91 days," which marks the time between the release of the Dobbs v. Jackson Supreme Court decision, which effectively ended the recognition of abortion as a constitutional right, and the indictment. 

Stimson and Von Spakovsky added in their legal commentary piece that "the Justice Department, under Democratic administrations, has a history of misusing the FACE Act to go after abortion opponents." 

MISSOURI SENATOR SENDS LETTER TO GARLAND DEMANDING ANSWERS ON HOUCK PRO-LIFE ARREST

"In 2012, for example, a federal judge in Florida tossed out a FACE Act indictment against Mary Susan Pine, a pro-life activist who had been conducting peaceful sidewalk counseling outside an abortion clinic for many years. The judge excoriated the Justice Department for the behavior of its lawyers, saying that the indictment seemed to be the ‘product of a concerted effort between the government and the [abortion clinic] … to quell Ms. Pine’s activities’ rather than to enforce the statute," the duo wrote. 

Stimson said that there have meanwhile "been dozens, dozens of instances where people have vandalized and taken violent actions against pro-life centers. That's a violation of the federal law. Yet here's not been one prosecution."

"This stinks to high heaven. And it is something that the Congress now should be asking the Justice Department about."

FBI Philadelphia said in a statement to Fox News Digital on Monday that the "number of personnel and vehicles widely reported as being on scene Friday is an overstatement" and that the agency followed standard practices to carry out the arrest. 

"Extensive planning takes place prior to the service of any federal warrant. The FBI then employs the personnel and tactics deemed necessary to effect a safe arrest or search. While it’s the FBI’s standard practice not to discuss such operational specifics, we can say that the number of personnel and vehicles widely reported as being on scene Friday is an overstatement, and the tactics used by FBI personnel were professional, in line with standard practices, and intended to ensure the safety of everyone present in and outside the residence," an FBI spokesperson said. 

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Stimson noted that the FBI is "a really important institution to have in our country" and that "most FBI agents, do their job, do their job really well."

"But there's a high level of over-politicization of cases that matter to the politicals at the FBI. They and they alone are giving the FBI a bad name. And if they just did their damn job and focused on real crimes … like illegal aliens bringing fentanyl across this border and killing people, and career criminals who are responsible for the majority of violent crime in inner cities and dropping the hammer on career violent criminals … then we wouldn't be talking about the FBI," he said. 

When approached for comment, the FBI directed Fox News Digital to FBI Philadelphia's statement released Monday and declined further comment. 

Fox News' Bradford Betz, Jon Brown and Brianna Herlihy contributed to this article.