(LifeSiteNews) — Dear Friends,
Many of you will remember Paul Vaughn’s story. He is the father of 11 who participated in the peaceful protest of an abortion clinic in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, in 2021. Eighteen months later, the FBI arrested him at gunpoint in front of his wife and children on charges that his actions at the 2021 protest violated the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act and federal anti-conspiracy laws.
Paul Vaughn was indicted and convicted but later pardoned by President Trump, along with the other Mt. Juliet protestors. Their ordeal inspired President Trump to create a special White House Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias.
After my last article about Mark Reno, Paul Vaughn reached out to me, because he recognized one of Mark Reno’s prosecutors: Kyle Boynton also prosecuted the Mt. Juliet protestors! Paul and I had a good phone conversation, and he recommended that we try to get Mark Reno’s case in front of the Anti-Christian Bias task force.
The letter below my signature is the first step in that direction. It is a brief summary of what happened to Mark Reno and a request for help from the task force. I submitted this initial inquiry last week.
For newcomers: I have been researching and telling the story of Mark Reno—the Catholic man whom the Justice Department falsely accused of burning down Knoxville’s Planned Parenthood—since 2022.
I’m grateful to Tennessee Conservative News and LifeSiteNews for their help in bringing attention to this developing story.
***
Tuesday, October 28, 2025
To the White House Task Force on Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias, established by President Donald J. Trump:
My name is Jennifer Hay, and I am a journalist from Knoxville, Tennessee. I wish to submit a case to this Task Force for consideration—that of Mark Thomas Reno, a pro-life Catholic man from Jefferson City, TN. This is a brief summary of what happened to him. I affirm that everything in this summary is true and supported by available records.
On April 26, 2022, Mark Reno was surreptitiously recorded by the FBI at a pro-life event in Knoxville. During this recorded conversation, Reno told the undercover agent that he had been at the protest at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Subsequently, the FBI began to surveil Reno; they placed tracking devices on his vehicles on June 19, 2022.
On July 18, 2022, the FBI arrested Reno at his home in Jefferson City. They alleged that, after attending Mass at Holy Ghost Catholic Church on Sunday, July 3, 2022, Reno drove by the John J. Duncan Federal Building and fired three shots at its windows with a rifle.
However, there is scant evidence that anyone fired shots at the John J. Duncan Federal Building on July 3, 2022. No one heard gunshots. The Knoxville Police Department has no record of a shooting. The inner panes of glass were unbroken. A Federal Protective Service report about the incident clearly stated that no bullets, fragments, or casings were found. Moreover, another FPS report, dated June 18, 2022, documented another broken window on the same building only two weeks earlier. The FPS investigator for the June 18 incident surmised that the window had been impacted by debris from nearby construction.
Prosecutors Kyle Boynton and Casey Arrowood withheld the FPS incident reports from Mark Reno and his attorney, Sarah Olesiuk.
Because exculpatory records were withheld from Reno, Magistrate Judge Jill McCook ordered him detained until trial. Although he was in reasonably good health when he was arrested, he died in federal custody, without autopsy, on August 15, 2022—just 28 days after his arrest.
Shortly after his death, the FBI accused Reno, via a warrant for civil-asset forfeiture, of setting the fire which destroyed Knoxville’s Planned Parenthood on December 31, 2021. That Reno was the Planned Parenthood arsonist remains the prevailing narrative from media outlets, but it is demonstrably false. The fire was set from within the building by a man who was much thinner than Reno.
Let it be noted that one of Reno’s prosecutors, Kyle Boynton, has a record of aggressively prosecuting pro-life Christians. He prosecuted the pro-life protestors from Tennessee whom President Trump pardoned and cited in the order which established this Task Force.
About Boynton’s prosecution of the Mt. Juliet protestors, President Trump wrote:
Those convicted included a Catholic priest and 75-year-old grandmother, as well as an 87-year-old woman and a father of 11 children who were arrested 18 months after praying and singing hymns outside an abortion facility in Tennessee as a part of a politically motivated prosecution campaign by the Biden Administration. I rectified this injustice on January 23, 2025, by issuing pardons in these cases.
We need practical assistance from this Task Force. Among other things, we need help getting FBI records related to Mark Reno. We have a pending FOIA lawsuit, but lawsuits take time, and our need for these records is urgent.
The most important record we seek is the surreptitious FBI recording of Reno, made on April 26, 2022 (FOIPA Request No.: 1589943-000). We also need all FBI photographs of Mark Reno’s red GMC Sierra pick-up truck to compare with images of the arsonist’s truck captured by Planned Parenthood’s security cameras on the morning of December 31, 2021.
Please advise us on how to submit Mark Reno’s case, along with supporting records, for consideration by this Task Force.
Sincerely,
Jennifer Hay
Jenny Hay is the founder of Knoxville Nobility, a Substack publication for local pro-life, pro-family news and insights, including firsthand reporting on Knoxville’s 2021 Planned Parenthood arson.
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