JUSTICE DEPARTMENT SIDES WITH HISTORIC CAPITOL HILL BAPTIST CHURCH AGAINST D.C. GOVERNMENT: DOJ officials sided with Capitol Hill Baptist Church (CHBC) against the uber-restrictive District of Columbia government’s anti-Covid regulation that bars the congregation from meeting indoors or outdoors.

With more than 850 members, CHBC was founded in 1878 and has been attended by a lengthy list of U.S. representatives, senators and congressional staffers over the decades. Senior Pastor Mark Dever is among the nation’s best-known evangelical leaders. The church is represented in its suit by the Plano, Texas-based First Liberty Institute.

In it’s Statement of Interest, DOJ said CHBC is likely to prevail in federal court because “the church has demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits of its claim under the Free Exercise Clause and Free Speech Clause of the United States Constitution’s First Amendment, respectively, and under RFRA.”