House Judiciary Committee chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) is again demanding answers from FBI Director Christopher Wray after a leaked memo indicated the agency was singling out Catholic Americans.
Jordan “is demanding answers … as part of the panel’s investigation into the bureau’s alleged misuse of domestic violent extremism resources for ‘political purposes,’ after a leaked internal memo revealed the FBI had efforts underway to identify and treat some Catholics as violent extremists,” Fox News reported exclusively.
In a letter to the FBI director obtained by the outlet, Jordan demanded that the bureau hand over documents and other records linked to a Jan. 23 document from the FBI’s Richmond, Va., field office that tied in “‘racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists’ with a ‘radical-traditionalist Catholic’ ideology.”
“The Committee on the Judiciary is continuing to examine the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s handling of domestic violent extremism [DVE] investigations,” Jordan wrote. The top Republican on the House Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government, Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., signed the letter as well, Fox News reported.
The network noted further:
Jordan said he and committee Republicans have written to the FBI “several times” over the last year about “startling allegations that the FBI is misusing DVE resources for apparent political purposes.”
Since then, Jordan said new information has become public about the FBI’s “targeting of a set of Catholic Americans for their religious beliefs” — specifically referencing the Jan. 23 memo, which was leaked by a whistleblower earlier this month.
“In this document, the FBI purported to distinguish what it called ‘traditional Catholics’ from the disfavored RTC [radical-traditionalist Catholic] adherents, who the FBI characterized as embracing ‘anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ, and white supremacist ideology,” Jordan noted in his letter, adding that the FBI “even identified certain public policy issues — such as immigration and life issues — that it believed would ‘catalyze’ RTC adherents.”
The letter also said that the memo attempts to “separate and categorize Catholic Americans based on theological distinctions,” but said the FBI “underscored the political nature of its actions.” And it states that “FBI Richmond assesses RMVE [racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists] interest in RTCs is likely to increase over the next 12 or 24 months in the run-up to the next general election cycle.”
The Ohio Republican said the memo cites “biased and partisan sources, including the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Salon, and The Atlantic, to support its assessment.” He added that the SPLC “identifies the broad term ‘Christian identity’ as a hate group — a term that could arguably encompass millions of Americans with sincerely held religious beliefs.”
“The fact that the FBI would blindly accept and regurgitate the SPLC’s spin is highly concerning and undercuts the FBI’s assertion that it is unbiased and politically neutral,” Jordan wrote.
Ultimately, the FBI’s HQ withdrew the memo and placed the blame for it on the field office. But Jordan nonetheless wants to know the origins of the memo and the FBI’s “commitment to upholding First Amendment protected activity.”
“We remind you that whistleblower disclosures are protected by law and that we will not tolerate any effort to retaliate against whistleblowers for their disclosures,” Jordan added.
Fox News reported that hundreds of Roman Catholic churches have been attacked and vandalized since May 2020, according to Catholic nonprofit CatholicVote. More than 100 have occurred since the May 2022 leak of the U.S. Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion in all states.
