The White House has told the Justice Department to slow-walk abortion-related actions until after November’s midterm elections, according to a new report.
Senior White House officials, led by chief of staff Susie Wiles, delivered the message directly to Attorney General Todd Blanche in a series of discussions, a senior administration official told The Washington Sun. Wiles warned that an aggressive approach would draw unwanted attention and could alienate voters, the official said.
“No one wants us taking any real action before the midterms,” the official told the outlet.
The White House denied the report. “This is completely false. These conversations never occurred between White House officials and DOJ officials,” a spokesperson said in a statement.
But multiple sources told The Sun that administration officials have also told anti-abortion leaders to expect action only after the election.
“Once the midterms are over and it’s truly lame-duck time, we’ve heard the gloves will be off,” said one conservative in touch with the administration.
Tom McClusky of CatholicVote said he has heard “the same thing from every agency I talk to and from members of Congress.” Kristi Hamrick of Students for Life stated that “everything but the election is pushed until after the elections.”
According to a source who spoke with The Sun, DOJ officials have said that any move to enforce the Comstock Act, an 1873 law that could be used to bar mailing abortion drugs, will also wait until after November, but the source confirmed the department is “actively working on it.”
For now, the DOJ has asked federal judges to pause lawsuits seeking to restrict the abortion pill mifepristone while the Food and Drug Administration reviews the drug. Anti-abortion groups have demanded that the department drop that procedural defense. The senior official said the White House told Blanche it would not support doing so.
A DOJ spokesperson called President Donald Trump “the most pro-life president in history” but did not answer questions about the meetings.
At his July confirmation hearings, Blanche said he opposed mail-order abortion pills and pledged to enforce the Comstock Act. He has said nothing publicly on abortion since the summer.
The administration’s silence has frustrated federal judges. During recent oral arguments in Louisiana v. FDA, 5th Circuit judges repeatedly pressed DOJ lawyers to state the administration’s position.
“I find that very, very unsatisfactory that the agency won’t give an opinion as to its own regulations,” Judge Stephen Higginson said.
Any move to restrict the pills would break Trump’s 2024 campaign pledge not to “block” access to them.
The directive cuts against the post-Watergate “no contacts” policy, which was designed to shield the DOJ from White House political interference. Trump loosened that policy at the start of his second term.
The post White House secretly told DOJ to hold off on one hot-button issue until after vote: report appeared first on Raw Story.
