Mark Houck, the anti-abortion activist who was acquitted earlier this year of charges of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, will run for the House of Representatives in Pennsylvania.
Houck announced his campaign to unseat Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., on Aug. 2.
"The republic is falling apart. Perhaps for such a time as this, I have been called," Houck said in a statement to The Washington Times.
He recounted his arrest by the FBI in September 2022 after he was accused of assaulting a 72-year-old volunteer at a Planned Parenthood center. Houck was charged with violating the FACE Act, which makes it a federal crime to obstruct a reproductive health clinic with threats or violence, but was later acquitted by a jury.
"My family was raided," he said. "I don’t want any other American citizen to have to experience that."
Houck later said that he planned to sue the Department of Justice and Planned Parenthood over his arrest.
"What I am pursuing for Congress is nothing to do for the lawsuit," he said in his statement to the Times. "We are pursuing justice on all those fronts for my wife and my seven children."