Trump task force releases controversial 'anti-Christian bias' report

President Donald Trump’s task force to investigate "anti-Christian bias" in the federal government published a report on April 30 that criticized former President Joe Biden's administration for what it characterized as actions and policies that negatively impacted Christians around the country.

Several advocacy groups challenged the report's findings, describing them as deceptive and contradictory.

Trump established the task force in a February 2025 executive order that said his administration would “ensure that any unlawful and improper conduct, policies or practices that target Christians are identified, terminated and rectified.” 

Trump also established the White House Faith Office, which replaced Biden's White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, and the Religious Liberty Commission in the first few months of his second term. In the commission's first public hearing in June, then-U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said religious liberty had “come under attack” and vowed to protect religious freedom from what she described as its “emerging threats.”   

Those sentiments were reiterated in the task force’s nearly 200-page report, which criticized Biden's "Transgender Day of Visibility" proclamation (a longstanding observance which fell on Easter Sunday in 2024); charges against Christian anti-abortion activists; and alleged discrimination against Christian foster care families.

“By addressing anti-Christian bias and religious discrimination directly, Americans can make religious discrimination unthinkable for all faiths,” the report said. 

USA TODAY reached out to Biden’s office for comment.  

Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons, vice president of programs and strategy at Interfaith Alliance, called the administration’s accusations an example of “gross hypocrisy” considering Trump’s criticism of Pope Leo and Truth Social post including an AI-generated image appearing to depict him as Jesus, which even many of Trump's supporters criticized.

“This administration is the most harmful to religious liberty in modern American history, and so it has no grounds to go back and relitigate these minor controversies from the Biden administration,” he told USA TODAY. 

Interfaith Alliance is among the groups that sued the administration in February, alleging that the Religious Liberty Commission has an illegal lack of diversity by only having Christian and Jewish members. Graves-Fitzsimmons said oral arguments will be held in late May.  

The Freedom From Religion Foundation said the report "appears to be a partisan political attack masquerading as an objective civil rights analysis" and criticized what it described as the task force's "framing of routine legal and regulatory actions as persecution."

"This report chillingly signals an escalation of the Trump administration’s ongoing attacks on the constitutional principle of separation between state and church, so vital to our secular democracy," Annie Laurie Gaylor, the organization's co-founder and co-president, told USA TODAY.

Meanwhile, supporters of the task force — including Kelly Shackelford, president, CEO, and chief counsel at First Liberty — lauded the report's findings. “This report is shocking. The Biden administration’s record of hostility toward Christian Americans is despicable and should serve as a warning," Shackelford is quoted in a news release.

Here's what to know about the report.

Anti-abortion activists charged under FACE Act

The report said the Biden administration used the law, particularly the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, to target Christian anti-abortion activists.

The law prohibits individuals from interfering with another’s access to reproductive health services or houses of worship “by force, threat of force or physical obstruction.”

The Trump administration has made similar claims in the past.

A White House spokesperson previously pointed to a group of nearly two dozen people whom Biden's Department of Justice charged under the act for conspiring to storm a reproductive health clinic in Washington, DC, in October 2020. Trump pardoned the activists days after returning to office. 

The Trump administration also charged former CNN anchor Don Lemon and independent journalist Georgia Fort under the FACE Act in connection with a Minnesota church protest in January. Both Lemon and Fort pled not guilty and have characterized the charges against them as politically motivated, maintaining that their coverage of the event was legally protected under the First Amendment.

Ongoing legal battle over the Johnson Amendment

The report said the Biden administration did not neutrally apply the so-called Johnson Amendment, which bars 501(c)(3) organizations, including churches and nonprofits, from endorsing political candidates. 

Trump told reporters in April 2025 that several pastors had described being "targeted" by the IRS over their political activity under the Biden administration.

Though the law has been on the books since the 1950s, it has rarely been enforced. The IRS said in a July court filing that it would allow churches and other religious organizations to endorse political candidates in certain circumstances. 

The filing was part of a lawsuit that the National Religious Broadcasters, an international association of evangelical Christian communicators, and other plaintiffs initiated in 2024. But a federal judge unexpectedly dismissed the lawsuit in March, leaving the restrictions on churches' political speech in place for the time being. The National Religious Broadcasters filed a notice of appeal on April 22. 

In light of the ongoing legal battle, the Treasury Department announced in early April that it would be issuing guidance on how the Johnson Amendment applies to religious organizations later in the year. 

Alleged discrimination against Christian foster care families

The report further alleged the Department of Health and Human Services under the Biden administration discriminated against Christian foster families who “because of conflicts with their faith, insufficiently affirmed the Biden Administration’s views on sexual orientation and gender ideology.” 

The department issued a final rule in 2024 that sought to strengthen protections for LGBTQ youth in foster care by ensuring placements are “free from harassment, mistreatment and abuse, including related to a child’s sexual orientation or gender identity.” It said the Administration for Children and Families, a division of the department, was “committed to upholding Federal protections for free speech, religious exercise and conscience for all providers and children in the child welfare system” and that it believed the rule “respects these guarantees.” 

The task force's report also said the Biden administration “(took) steps to limit Christian families from seeking therapy from likeminded therapists on matters of sexual orientation and gender ideology” based on the perceived dangers of such services. 

Biden’s June 2022 executive order said his administration “must safeguard LGBTQI+ youth from dangerous practices like so-called ‘conversion therapy’” given the “significant harm” of such practices. He said this was demonstrated by studies showing higher rates of suicidal thoughts and actions among those who have experienced conversion therapy, which seeks to change one's gender identity or sexual orientation.

Concerns about the religious expression in the federal workplace

The report also accused the Biden administration of failing to provide adequate religious exemptions to its COVID-19 vaccine mandate for federal employees and contractors. 

It alleged that data from various agencies and third-party surveys, as well as personal testimonies, demonstrated a "general reluctance to extend First Amendment rights to religious-based conduct." It added that religious exemption requests were "summarily denied or remained pending indefinitely."

Biden’s executive order for federal employees noted that it was “subject to such exceptions as required by law,” which protects religious exemptions. The task force's report alleged that "this promise was illusory."

The Trump administration has referenced issues of religious freedom in the federal government more broadly, including through a July 2025 memo that outlined employees’ rights to expressions of faith in the workplace.  

Experts at the time noted that the memo largely reiterated longtime federal policy but said it was different in its examples of acceptable religious expression in such settings, which were solely from Christian and Jewish traditions. The Trump administration said at the time that the protections applied to all faiths. 

Final report to come in 2027

The task force published an initial report in September, which had similar criticisms of the Biden administration.  

The April 30 report said the task force would publish another report in 2027 with policy recommendations in line with Trump’s executive order on perceived “anti-Christian bias.” The task force will dissolve in February 2027 unless Trump extends its term. 

(This story has been updated to add new information.)

BrieAnna Frank is a First Amendment reporter at USA TODAY. Reach her at [email protected]. 

USA TODAY's coverage of First Amendment issues is funded through a collaboration between the Freedom Forum and Journalism Funding Partners. Funders do not provide editorial input.