The vice president of Faith & Liberty, a self-proclaimed non-profit organization that advocates for so-called “christian” causes and which filed briefs with the Supreme Court in favor of overturning a woman’s Constitutional right to an abortion, boasted on a recent conference call that she regularly holds prayer sessions with justices sitting on the Court, Rolling Stone reports.
While Faith & Liberty’s website has wiped all information from its “About” page, Peggy Nienaber is a vice president of the organization, which markets itself as “Your Missionaries to Capitol Hill” on its social media feeds. Nienaber is also the executive director of DC Ministry, a subsidiary of Liberty Counsel, which calls itself “a Christian ministry that proclaims, advocates, supports, advances, and defends the good news that God in the person of Jesus Christ paid the penalty for our sins and offers forgiveness and eternal life to all who accept him as Lord and Savior.”
An executive of an interested party in a Supreme Court case having unfettered, unsupervised contact with justices hearing that case may be a violation of a number of judicial rules barring lobbying of jurists and unfairly influencing the outcome of a case. Liberty Counsel submitted an amicus brief on the Dobbs case urging the revocation of Roe v. Wade.
On a call made from the steps of the Supreme Court as Nienaber and other anti-choice activists celebrated the Court’s decision of the Dobbs case, Nienaber was asked if she had prayed with justices. She is heard responding, “I do. They will pray with us, those that like us to pray with them.” She later goes on to say “We’re the only people who do that [hold religious ceremonies in the Supreme Court]. … We actually go in there.”
Faith & Liberty was founded by Rob Schenck, a preacher who wrote in his autobiography said that he fostered friendships with Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and the late Antonin Scalia as he sought to gain influence in all branches of the government to promote his views and opinions.