CV NEWS FEED // Eight members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (Intel) publicized a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray demanding an explanation for the “Richmond memo,” which instructed field officers to target so-called “radical traditional Catholics.”
The letter gives Director Wray until September 29 to report the steps he has taken to ensure unconstitutional processes like the memo will never happen again. As reported by CatholicVote:
The FBI director “may have lied under oath” about the Bureau’s infamous January memo against so-called “radical traditional” Catholics. New evidence shows the contents of the memo did not originate solely with the Richmond, VA field office, but were part of an effort that spanned the FBI offices of Portland and Los Angeles.
All Republican senators on the Intel Committee signed the letter: Marco Rubio, R-FL, James Risch, R-ID, Susan M. Collins, R-ME, Tom Cotton, R-AK, John Cornyn, R-TX, Jerry Moran, R-KS, James Lankford, R-OK, and M. Michael Mounds, R-SD.
Senator Rubio told CatholicVote: “The FBI exists to protect the American people, not harass them based on their religious affiliations. This type of activity dangerously undermines public trust in our institutions that are critical to Americans’ safety and security. Congress will take every step to investigate and halt any of these activities.”
“We write with deep concern regarding the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) targeting of Catholics under the pretext of investigating racially or ethnically motivated extremists and have many questions about the underlying processes that FBI employed to develop such errant analysis,” the letter states.
On January 23, the FBI field office in Richmond, Virginia published an eight-page memorandum titled, “Interest of Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists in Radical Traditionalist Catholic (“RTC”) Ideology Almost Certainly Presents New Mitigation Opportunities.”
On March 8, Wray testified that the Richmond memo was an isolated product of the Richmond field office, but new information has come to light that the FBI developed its assessment of “RTC’s” by relying on field offices in Portland and Los Angeles.
“We are concerned that this new information contradicts your March 8, 2023 testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence,” the letter said:
Not only did this memorandum make outrageous and sweeping generalizations about the Catholic faith and millions of Americans, but the memorandum also relies on wholly unsubstantiated news sources, a left-wing organization, and biased and partisan definitions of hate groups in the United States.
“This memorandum and its underlying processes, neither protect the American people, nor uphold the Constitution,” it continues. “The FBI does not exist to harass law-abiding Americans, nor will Congress permit [the] FBI to do so.”
CatholicVote’s Director of Government Affairs Tom McClusky commented:
Why is the FBI targeting Catholics while also turning a blind eye to the hundreds of attacks on Catholic churches? Here’s why: The teachings of the Catholic Church offer the largest obstacles to the anti-parent, pro-abortion agenda of the Biden administration. And the FBI has decided they will be his enforcers.
