Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) released more documents showing the lengths the FBI under former President Joe Biden went to target so-called “radical” Catholics.
Grassley demanded that FBI Director Kash Patel hand over more documents.
I covered the situation as much as I could:
The FBI gave Grassley 13 documents and five attachments drowned in anti-Catholic terminology with information from the radical Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).
“One FBI agent admitted over email, ‘[O]ur overreliance on the SPLC for hate designation [of traditional Catholics] is … problematic,'” according to Grassley’s press release.
Grassley raised concerns about Biden’s FBI using obviously biased sources, such as the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), that hold anti-Catholic views.
Former FBI Director Christopher Wray attempted to downplay the Richmond memo, painting the office as a rogue one and the only office involved. That is not true (emphasis mine):
The FBI’s recent production shows the FBI analysts in Richmond also consulted with the Louisville, Portland, and Milwaukee field offices as they prepared the Richmond memo. This included gathering information about Catholic traditionalist groups from the Louisville Field Office. That information appears to have informed a slide presentation at least one of the Richmond analysts produced referencing RTCs’ supposed “core concepts,” including “[c]onservative family values/roles” and finding “radical-traditional Catholicism’s” beliefs were, “[c]omparable to Islamist ideology.” In addition, the email exchanges with the Portland and Milwaukee FBI field offices as the Richmond memo was being prepared clearly didn’t just ask them to confirm, “two sentences or something thereabouts” related to their own cases, as Director Wray claimed in response to my questioning. As the FBI’s recent productions reveal, the exchange between the Richmond analysts and the Portland and Milwaukee field offices included phone conversations about the memo, as this produced email from one of the authoring Richmond analysts demonstrates.The Milwaukee office was notified the Richmond analysts were preparing an, “Intelligence Note related to the interest of RMVEs [racially-motivated violent extremists] in Radical-Traditionalist Catholic Ideology” and that the analyst was “doing some queries to look into other RMVE subjects who adhere to rad-trad ideology.” The Richmond analyst wanted to “pick [the Milwaukee analyst’s] brain further.” The memo was published to a share drive used by the Milwaukee Field Office, and FBI officials there and in the Phoenix, Arizona field office expressed concern about the use of the SPLC as a source. It’s unclear whether this criticism ever made its way back to Richmond, but it does show the memo was shared with FBI Milwaukee and other field offices.
The Richmond office held conversations with the Buffalo, NY, office, relaying information that two supposed “RTC hate groups” named by the SPLC exist in the city.
“This raises serious concerns that FBI field offices may have relied on the Richmond memo, and placed groups in their areas of responsibility under suspicion based on reporting from the deeply-biased sources used in the memo,” wrote Grassley.
Oh, look. The FBI Richmond field office drafted another memo to pass to the entire agency as a Strategic Perspective Executive Analytic Report (SPEAR).
The second memo “repeated the unfounded link between traditional Catholicism and violent extremism.” Yup:
Director Wray’s testimony was inaccurate not only because it failed to reveal the scope of the memo’s production and dissemination, but also because it failed to reveal the existence of a second, draft product on the same topic intended for external distribution to the whole FBI.24 That draft product was intended for distribution as a Strategic Perspective Executive Analytic Report (SPEAR). It was clearly a separate product, since it involved a different planned distribution to the whole Bureau, and a different chain of review, through the Counterterrorism Division. It also contained different content from the internal Domain Perspective, notably deleting references to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Nevertheless, this draft external memo repeated the unfounded link between traditional Catholicism and violent extremism that was present in the internal Domain Perspective. It concluded that, “RMVE [racially and ethnically-motivated violent extremism] in RTCs [“radical-traditional Catholicism”] is likely to increase . . . .” This shows once again that Director Wray’s claim the Richmond analysts produced a “single product” was false.
Um, former FBI Director Christopher Wray said the office only developed “a single product.”
Thankfully, a whistleblower produced the first memo, as the Richmond office never had a chance to publish the second memo due to the backlash.
Grassley also discovered a possible conspiracy to delete information once the whistleblower exposed the plans.
One document revealed that then-FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate told the special agent in charge of the Richmond office to permanently remove the memo, “as well as any edits or references from all FBI systems.”
Grassley reminded Patel that the FBI had told him the agency “believed they could recover deleted files,” but no one had ever given them to him.
Also, the ability to recover deleted files “contradicts the FBI’s own INSD report on the memo’s preparation.” Oh, boy:
The INSD report noted with respect to internal feedback within the Richmond Field Office that it, “couldn’t determine whether certain feedback was provided on the memo, because ‘all references to the [Domain Perspective] were removed from the Intelligence Share Point side.” The FBI’s recent productions show the FBI’s Operational Technology Division (OTD), two days after the memo’s public release, on February 10, 2023, notified the Richmond Field Office that an FBI official, whose identity is redacted, similarly ordered OTD to “pull down” an Excel document showing the list of “users who have accessed the Domain Perspective Intel product across our relevant case files.”
Grassley told Patel he wants the FBI to name the FBI official and provide all documentation related to the deletion.
“I’m determined to get to the bottom of the Richmond memo, and of the FBI’s contempt for oversight in the last administration,” Grassley told Patel. “I look forward to continuing to work with you to restore the FBI to excellence and prove once again that justice can and must be fairly and evenly administered, blind to whether we are Democrats or Republicans, believers or nonbelievers.”
Thank you, Sen. Grassley.
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