After many months of not seeing any progress in the investigations into who attacked multiple pro-life pregnancy centers last summer following the Dobbs decision, the FBI seems to have been spurred to action. (Maybe.) The Bureau has renewed its offer of a $25,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of whoever firebombed the CompassCare crisis pregnancy center near Buffalo, New York, and dozens of other such facilities around the country. As you may recall, the CEO of CompassCare recently hired private investigators and put up a reward of his own while accusing the FBI of “slow-walking” the investigation and holding on to security footage showing the arsonists that conducted the attack. Perhaps the Bureau was finally embarrassed enough to do some actual work on the case, or at least give the public impression that it was doing so. (National Review)

The FBI is offering a $25,000 reward to sources who can provide information about the suspects responsible for a spate of attacks on pro-life pregnancy resource centers.

The bureau said in a news release it can investigate the crimes as potential acts of domestic violent extremism, Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE Act) violations, or violent crime matters, depending on the facts of each case.

“Today’s announcement reflects the FBI’s commitment to vigorously pursue investigations into crimes against pregnancy resource centers, faith-based organizations, and reproductive health clinics across the country,” FBI director Christopher Wray said in a statement.

The FBI certainly hasn’t seemed terribly interested in solving these cases, but perhaps we’ve been a bit too quick to judge them in this matter. I would have thought that having security camera footage of the attacks and plenty of time to pore over all of the cellphone location data around the centers, they might have come up with some suspects by now. But the nature of the “organization” taking credit for the attacks may be making the investigation far more challenging.

One of the big problems facing the FBI very likely involves the reality that Jane’s Revenge isn’t actually “real” in the sense that other activist organizations are. The “group” doesn’t appear to have any sort of official office and nobody seems to be using a “JanesRevenge” URL with any extension I could find. There is no official spokesperson to contact for comments. They might be operating on the dark web somewhere, but I couldn’t find any definitive proof of that either.

In this sense, Jane’s Revenge is more like ISIS than any sort of organized, activist movement. It’s an idea that “inspires” people to go out and commit violence in the name of some larger cause, just as so many “ISIS-inspired” terrorists have murdered people in the United States despite never having lived overseas or “trained” with the terror group. There is a good chance that the attackers responsible for these firebombings across disparate parts of the country never even knew each other or were in contact. That could definitely make it harder to track them down.

Still, the fact that the people responsible for the attacks are dangerous and frankly evil is beyond dispute. They are causing property damage and putting people’s lives in danger over an action taken by the Supreme Court that was completely beyond the control of the people running the pregnancy centers. And those centers are doing the exact opposite of what goes on at Planned Parenthood clinics. While PP is actively engaged in terminating the lives of unborn children, CompassCare and the rest of the Christian pregnancy centers are trying to help women and girls in challenging situations bring a new life into the world. What sort of person views that type of activity as a reason to commit arson?

It is beyond doubt that there is someone out there who knows the identity of the firebombers. Perhaps $25,000 will be enough to get them to pick up a phone.