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I’ve spent most of my career defending Americans against prosecutorial misconduct and overreaching. I represented President Trump, who the Biden Regime accused of crimes for exercising his constitutional rights. I now represent (post-trial) Nicole Daedone, one of the founders of OneTaste, a wellness company and meditative community. Nicole and her co-defendant Rachel Cherwitz were recently convicted of human “trafficking” in Brooklyn federal court for practicing and teaching sensual meditation and female empowerment. The practices are rooted in historical Hinduism, Buddhism, and tantra. The prosecution (which was initiated before the Trump Administration could consider all its implications) was embedded with woke concepts, including that the government rather than individuals determines victimization and that consent by adults once given can be withdrawn years later with criminal consequences. The thread that connects these cases is clear: under the Biden Regime, law enforcement has been overtaken by ideology and government oppression.
This law – the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) – has been used by the Biden Regime and left-wing pressure groups to attack communal religious practices and advance woke ideology in the criminal law. Recently one of these groups (who had been receiving federal funds) sued the Trump Administration for curtailing abusive diversity, equity, and inclusion (“DEI”) practices. Its argument was that, consistent with a radical ideology, DEI concepts must be advanced as part of TVPA enforcement.
For the far-left, DEI must not only be forced down students and workers throats, but that it should also be the touchstone of TVPA government enforcement. That was exactly the approach prosecutors took in obtaining convictions of the OneTaste practitioners. Woke ideology turns traditional western law on its head. It eliminates the historical concept that individuals are responsible for their own actions and embraces victimization ideology that allows the government to pick its victims and then go after citizens it does not like using the criminal law. This legal virus assumes that women are not in control of their own sexuality or spiritual practices and must be protected by a government acting as an omnipotent guardian.
As with so much of criminal law in the Biden Regime, the TVPA was weaponized to achieve political and ideological objectives. The essence of weaponization – and let’s face it, the Biden regime was good at it - is to take a law intended for one purpose and trans morph it like a legal Frankenstein into another form to assert government power and advance a political agenda. The TVPA was created to attack modern day slavery and human trafficking, all worthy goals that should receive substantial federal attention and funding. But under the Biden Regime, the TVPA became another social engineering experiment to criminalize alleged “psychological harm” for adults voluntarily entering spiritual and sensual practices.
We should all be concerned, most particularly religious communal practices who could one day be the target of a far-left administration much more radical than the Biden Regime. We can imagine that Catholic religious orders (who have already been sued) and traditional Jewish communities, could be the next targets of an extreme agenda like the one already taking root in New York City. Left-wing ideology, not rule of law, will be used to overturn years of religious freedom and to oppress religious minorities. Faith-based communities, spiritual teachers, and alternative wellness groups now find themselves at risk for practices the government may not approve of.
I have no doubt that the Trump Administration, which has already spoken loudly about religious freedom, will end this woke prosecution culture. Federal criminal law should not become another expression of elite college campus ideologies. But the protections need to go much further than one administration to ensure future religious protections. The TVPA statute should be amended to prevent religious or spiritual beliefs from being characterized as “psychological coercion” as the Biden Regime advocated. The time to act is right now. When Congress returns in session it will take up the reauthorization of TVPA, which is the perfect time to amend the law in order to protect ordinary Americans from government oppression and religious intolerance.
The anti-trafficking movement began righteously as a moral crusade against slavery and human trafficking. Rightly construed, the TVPA should be critical to the Trump Administration’s immigration enforcement efforts and fighting human trafficking. The Biden Regime’s open borders policy allowed tens of thousands of traffickers into this country who were given a hall pass under the TVPA. That will change under President Trump. But the TVPA should never be used as a weapon against freedom of conscience and spiritual beliefs or as a means of social experimentation. The rule of law, stripped of ideology and weaponization, must once again serve its highest calling: defending the free will and dignity of every human being.
