Rep. Jim Banks is demanding that the individual responsible for the military training that portrayed pro-life Americans as terrorists must be held accountable.

Banks, R-Ind., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee’s Subcommittee on Military Personnel, hosted a hearing Thursday, “Oversight of Extremism Policies in the Army.”

The Indiana lawmaker, who is running for Senate, addressed training sessions given to service members on the North Carolina military base Fort Liberty from 2017 to a few months ago that characterized pro-life organizations as “terrorist groups.”

“The training labeled several prominent and well-respected pro-life groups, that count millions of everyday Americans as members, as violent extremists,” Banks said disapprovingly in his opening statement.

The Directorate of Emergency Services training labeled pro-life organizations, including National Right to Life and Operation Rescue, as terrorists. A slide from the PowerPoint presentation featured a common pro-life license plate and warned about common pro-life activities, such as sidewalk counseling, counseling at pro-life pregnancy resource centers, and “demonstrations and protests” opposing the 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion nationwide.

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Some 10,000 soldiers underwent the training, Banks said.

“The training accused the members of these organizations of being threats to the safety of military installations and designated symbols of pro-life groups, including state-issued pro-life license plates, as indicators of terrorism,” said the four-term Indiana congressman who serves in the Navy Reserve as a Supply Corps officer and who served in Afghanistan.

Banks questioned U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Patrick Matlock about how the training went on for so many years.

“I want to emphasize again, these training materials were improperly developed and should have never been presented,” Matlock responded “The failure was in anyone providing feedback or any supervisor not observing the training and taking immediate correction. There is no excuse for how long it lasted.”

After the investigation into the training, Matlock said “the commander” directed corrective actions, which have now all been completed. The individual who created the training has “received corrective training” and continues to work for the Army, Matlock said in response to Banks’ questions about accountability for the training.

“The training materials were very poorly developed, and we fully acknowledged that failure,” Matlock said.

The general did not answer Banks’ repeated questions about who was held accountable for the training and how they were punished.

“This is embarrassing,” Banks said. “And it makes me wonder what other mistakes is the United States Army making, maybe even in a larger way. I’m even more baffled after hearing from you than I was before.”

Banks raised concerns about the recent Army Directive 2024-07 on “Handling Protest, Extremist, and Criminal Gang Activities,” which broadly defines extremism, he said, to “police the speech of conservative service members, quiet dissent, and require service members who believe in conservative ideals to hide their identities for fear of retaliation from their commands.”

The training is a First Amendment violation that could be used against any soldier whose views differ from the ruling authority, Banks said.

“The First Amendment is broad for a reason. Once speech is limited speech, no matter how offensive or vulgar, individual freedoms are dangerously infringed upon, and that is the real threat to democracy,” he said.

Banks questioned Assistant Secretary of the Army for Manpower and Reserve Affairs Agnes Schaefer about whether the National Right to Life or the environmentalist Earth Liberation Front are terrorists groups. Schaefer said neither were. But the Earth Liberation Front was responsible for more than 130 bombings and arsons between 1995 and 2010, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

“You admit that something went wrong, but yet today, even at this hearing, no one has ever been held accountable for it,” Banks said.

LifeNews Note: Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell writes for Daily Signal, where this article originally appeared.