The Trump administration needs to align what they've been saying on the record with what their own Department of Justice attorneys have been doing when it comes to religious freedom issues, particularly the Affordable Care Act's contraception mandate.

As the Daily Caller reported Sunday,

DOJ lawyers have continued to keep alive a slew of cases appealing a 2014 district court ruling that granted an injunction from the mandate to several Catholic organizations. The Supreme Court vacated an appeals court ruling against The Little Sisters of the Poor and similar organizations in 2016, sending the cases back to the lower courts. Many religious freedom advocates expected that the Trump administration, which has vowed to protect The Little Sisters and other organizations burdened by the contraceptive mandate, would drop the legal campaign against the religious organizations. But more than six months into the Trump era, the legal fights are still alive.

In May, Trump signed an executive order telling Health and Human Services bureaucrats to "consider issuing amended regulations, consistent with applicable law, to address conscience-based objections to the preventive-care mandate" related to Obamacare.

Toward the end of the month, HHS leaked an interim draft rule which sounded like it would be much more firm about religious liberty protections: While the administration would still ensure contraception is covered by the new healthcare plan, it wouldn't necessarily mandate folks with religious or conscientious objections to participate.

Monday, a glimmer of hope appeared for people with religious objections to the contraceptive mandate, and who've been stuck in an endless hamster wheel of litigation just to ensure basic First Amendment rights remain intact. Attorneys with the First Liberty Institute, a religious liberty organization based in Texas, held a meeting on the record with officials from the executive agencies tasked with reviewing rules related to the ACA's contraceptive mandate.

According to the press release, First Liberty encouraged the administration that "the draft interim final rule leaked to the press last month and offering broad conscience protections be made final as soon as possible."

Matthew Kacsmaryk, deputy general counsel for First Liberty, said "Our clients have been litigating against the government's effort to punish business owners and ministry leaders for following their religious beliefs and moral convictions since 2013," and offering broad conscience protections once and for all would essentially "reaffirm America's leadership role as a nation that protects religious freedom for everyone."

Time will tell if the Trump administration's desire to protect religious liberty finally matches up with how the Department of Justice has been handling litigation in this arena.

Nicole Russell is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blog. She is a journalist in Washington, D.C., who previously worked in Republican politics in Minnesota. She was the 2010 recipient of the American Spectator's Young Journalist Award.

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Trump's rhetoric in favor of religious liberty doesn't sync with how the Justice Department is handling it - Washington Examiner