WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) – The Biden administration’s U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is refiling charges against former Republican U.S. Rep. Jeff Fortenberry of Nebraska for allegedly lying to federal investigators about accepting illegal campaign donations in a case critics suspect is really about a pro-abortion federal government attempting to persecute a pro-life opponent.

Fortenberry, who had been in office since 2005, resigned in March 2022 days after being convicted of one count of conspiring to falsify and conceal material facts and two counts of making false statements to the FBI concerning $30,000 in campaign contributions he received in 2016 from Gilbert Chagoury, a billionaire and foreign national whose money could not be legally accepted.

Fortenberry maintained he was unaware of the donations, cooperated with investigators, and appealed the ruling, eventually getting his conviction overturned in December 2023 on the grounds prosecutors had charged him in an improper venue, Los Angeles, rather than in his home state of Nebraska or Washington, D.C., where he worked.

Now, Catholic News Agency reported, the feds have refiled the case in the nation’s capital, hoping a new conviction will stick.

The “case should never have been brought in the first place, and it shouldn’t have been pursued again,” Fortenberry spokesperson Chad Kolton responded. “The man the Biden Justice Department is about to spend massive amounts of time and money prosecuting for a second time was described by the District Court judge in his previous trial as ‘by all accounts … a man of exceptional character. And when I say ‘by all accounts,’ I don’t mean simply based upon one-sided submissions on the part of the defense. I mean by all accounts, including the evidence that was presented by the government at trial.’”

“This is a disgraceful misuse of prosecutorial power and an egregious waste of resources at the time when the Justice Department is letting actual crime run rampant,” he declared.

The Biden administration is ardently pro-abortion, whereas Fortenberry had a pro-life voting record during his time in Congress. 

Critics have long argued that the Biden administration has set a new standard for using government power to punish its political enemies, from non-violent Trump supporters who prosecutors lumped in with rioters after the infamous January 6, 2021 rally to conservative Christian groups the Treasury department wants labeled as “hate groups” to disfavored political speech on social media to pro-life activists such as Mark Houck.