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| Armed FBI agents outside Houck family home image provided by the Thomas More Society |
On Jan 31, the day after he was acquitted of the FACE Act charges pressed by the Biden administration, Houck spoke on the "War Room" podcast with Steve Bannon. Bannon asked Houck directly, “Do you intend to press charges for prosecutorial abuse? And are you going to press charges against the FBI agents and the state troopers?”
Houck responded, “We most definitely will and we will be seeking counsel on that. I think Peter Breen at Thomas More Society wants to get myself, my wife, and children in front of Congress and give them the details of what happened.”
Between 2015 and 2019, Breen served on the Illinois General Assembly. Now, Breen works as the Executive Vice President & Head of Litigation at the Thomas More Society. The Thomas More Society represented Houck against the Biden administration's charges.
For the first time since his arrest, Houck publicly described the experience of his arrest. Before 7 AM on September 23, 2022, Houck awoke to repeated banging on his front door. Houck said the authorities did not identify themselves while doing so. Houck demanded that they identify themselves before he opened the door, and they did.
“As I opened the door, I could not believe the circus scene that I saw,” he said.
There were “at least 10, 15 marked and unmarked units right in front of me. Surrounding the side of my house, I have 100 yards to the street, cars lined all the way up to the street, long guns pointed at me, heavily armored vests, ballistic helmets, ballistic shields, a battering ram,” he said.
“It was reckless that day,” Houck said. “I’m so surprised that someone wasn’t shot or I wasn’t shot.”
“[If] my kids picked up one of our airsoft guns that they play around with they easily could have been shot,” he said, adding that this was “extremely reckless behavior on the part of the federal government.”
Houck further alleges that the FBI "manipulated" him and his wife into giving them information that he didn't want to give them.
Perhaps most shockingly, Houck told Bannon that prior to his trial, the Biden administration offered him a plea deal. If Houck pled guilty, he would walk away with just "a slap on the wrist."
“I was not going to take that plea. But I just wanted your audience to know that that’s how highly the government thought of this case,” he said. “And I knew the importance of allowing this case to set precedent for the pro-life movement, to have case law on the books.”
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