The internal memo that shows the Federal Bureau of Investigation was set to surveil and harass traditional Catholics has invited the ire of 20 state attorneys general and GOP Reps. Jim Jordan and Mike Johnson of the House Judiciary Committee. On February 10, the attorneys general blasted U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI chief Christopher Wray in a seven-page letter about the COINTELPROish activity. Jordan and Johson wrote to Wray on February 16 [Jordan demands answers from Wray after leaked FBI memo suggests agency may be targeting Catholics, by Brooke Singman, Fox News, February 16, 2023]. Both letters attacked the FBI for using the Southern Poverty Law Center as a source to justify the espionage.
Former G-Man Kyle Seraphin, who revealed the memo, detailed just how the FBI is again using $PLC’s false claims to attack Catholics who like smells, bells, and Latin at Mass. The bureau dropped the discredited hate group in 2014 under the Obama Administration:
Appendix D is a direct copy of the SPLC list of “Radical Traditional Catholicism Hate Groups,” including the web address accessed. The SPLC appears to be a source for the intelligence analyst’s beliefs that RTCs exist and that they are anti-Semitic. The SPLC description for this “hate group” states RTCs “may make up the largest single group of serious anti-semites in America.” Often in the intelligence world, this type of statement without any established evidence is often followed by the acronym “NFI” or “No Further Information” to indicate it is an unsubstantiated opinion. Additionally, SPLC states RTCs “embrace extremely conservative social ideals with respect to women.” Nothing reported by the SPLC indicates the number of adherents to this alleged ideology nor any instances of violence. This lack of evidence and blatant partisan blindness is one of many reasons the FBI has distanced itself from the SPLC as a source in the past 10 years.
[The FBI Doubles Down on Christians and White Supremacy in 2023, by Kyle Seraphin, UncoveredDC.com, February 8, 2023]
Apparently, the agents in Richmond, Virginia, responsible for this Stalinesque plan didn’t know the $PLC is disgraced and discredited. And possibly, neither did Wray and Garland.
Led by Virginia’s Jason Miyares, the attorneys general observed that the FBI had proposed sending informants into churches as spies, and in a lengthy footnote cited four articles that showed $PLC is “utterly discredited as a reliable source”:
After the blowback when the memo surfaced, the FBI panicked and retracted the memorandum.
But now Wray and Garland must explain just why the FBI is using $PLC again [FBI retracts leaked document orchestrating investigation of Catholics, Tyler Arnold and Joe Bukuras, Catholic News Agency, February 9, 2023].
We can’t wait to hear the answer.
