Report: FBI 'abused its counterterrorism tools' to target Catholic Americans; would continue doing so but for whistleblower

The Blaze ^ | December 5, 2023 | Joseph Mackinnon

[Twotone]

Congressional lawmakers released an interim report Monday titled, "The FBI's Breach of Religious Freedom: The Weaponization of Law Enforcement Against Catholic Americans," providing a glimpse into the lengths the FBI has gone to cast those with conservative religious beliefs as threats apparently requiring state surveillance and "mitigation."

The new report from the House Judiciary Committee and its Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government indicates the FBI:

"abused its counterterrorism tools to target Catholic Americans as potential domestic terrorists"; "relied on at least one undercover agent to develop its assessment"; "proposed developing sources among the Catholic clergy and church leadership"; and would likely still be "violating the religious liberties of millions of Catholic Americans" were it not for former FBI special agent Kyle Seraphin's disclosure.

The subcommittee began looking seriously into the FBI's apparent suspicion of conservative Catholics after Seraphin blew the whistle in February over the existence of an internal memo released by the FBI field office in Richmond that warned violent extremists are attracted to "Radical traditionalist Catholic ideology."

Finding the FBI uncooperative after the initial revelations about the memo, Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) issued a subpoena to Director Christopher Wray in April demanding documents pertaining to the internal January 2023 memo.

The new report indicated on the basis of documents obtained via the subpoena that there was "no legitimate basis for the memorandum to insert federal law enforcement into Catholic houses of worship."

The pretext for the anti-Catholic initiative appears to have been the self-identification of a single parishioner under investigation as a "radical-traditionalist Catholic." Agents reportedly interviewed the parishioner's priest and the choir director related to his church while developing the memo.

While FBI employees reportedly could not define the RTC descriptor, the phantom danger nevertheless became the meat of the FBI-wide memo concerning the alleged dangers of "radical" Catholics.

Extra to building a blanket condemnation on a lone case and an ill-defined descriptor, the two FBI employees who penned the internal memo reportedly admitted their sources cited in the document were politically biased. The sources included the Southern Poverty Law Center, Salon, and the Atlantic.

Salon recently evidenced its skew by advancing the claim that "MAGA and Christian nationalism" constitute greater threats than Hamas "could ever be." The SPLC has claimed that RTCs "may make up the largest single group of serious antisemites in America."

The FBI later admitted that the memo "failed to consider the potential bias and credibility of open-source information cited in support of the [document's] assessment" and that the alleged link between racially motivated violent extremists and RTC lacked "sufficient evidence or articulable support."

It appears the slapdash stigmatization of this particular group of conservative Christians was driven by more than mere bigotry. After all, the memo claimed that increasing extremist interest ahead of the 2024 general election in pro-life, pro-family, and reality-affirming Catholic views — views ostensibly antithetical to those held by incumbent federal powers — created an opportunity for the FBI to execute new "mitigation efforts," such as the development of informants in churches.

According to the report, FBI Richmond, the office that originated the memo, has not apologized or canned any of the employees involved in creating the document.

The report concluded, "This ill-conceived and ill-administered memorandum is a stark warning of the need for scrupulous review of FBI documents with the potential to circumvent Americans' civil liberties and the right to free exercise of religion."

"Remember when Joe Biden stood in front of Independence Hall and talked about how one half of the country is fascist?" Chairman Jordan told Fox News Monday. "It's this whole mindset. If you're pro-life, if you're a traditional Catholic, somehow you're radical, somehow you're an extremist."

[MinorityRepublican]

I agree. The FBI is too politically biased so they are no longer doing their jobs. They are supposed to be looking out for threats against America. Instead they are focusing on MAGA Conservatives because they see them as a threat to Biden Administration’s power.

[Red6]

If you want to fix it quickly, yes.

But realize what you have today took several years and there is a slow and less radical way to do it. That’s what happened in the Obama, Holder/Lynch, Comey, years where they turned the FBI full woke.

They changed the recruiting which ultimately recreated the FBI. Far less former military and law enforcement were hired. More teachers, social workers, and other former state and federal government workers that had ass and trash positions which have absolutely no relevance to the FBI and it’s mission were brought in.

The goal according to Comey was to make the FBI represent the demographics of the US (they gave the old race and sex based hiring initiatives a facelift and implemented them). What that really meant was hiring folks that were less qualified but were black, female, Latino, homosexual, straight from college (we didn’t hire folks until they had some maturity and experience in the past, the average age in the academy used to be 31.5 years). I have two children, 1 boy and 1 girl. If my daughter applies to the FBI today, if she merely meets the minimum qualifications (and she does), she would be accepted. However, my son not being gay, black, or Latino needs to stand out from the crowd to get hired.

IMHO, the senior leaders were probably always sucks. BUT the level of politics which has crept into the decision making has become overt and brazen. Knowing this is unprofessional and dangerous, historically they at least tried to hide it and it was more limited and subtle, with slight political maneuvers. Today it’s in your face (enforcing the teachers unions request to go after parents at school boards), wide spread (Comey leaks, Trump tower FISA...), and full force (J6 where we use every power imaginable to stick folks in prison for inordinate amounts of time by manipulating the system). The level at which the FBI is used as a political instrument by Garland (hence the Democrats and Biden) is without precedent.

Mueller was the enabler: He centralized the FBI in power and information. He focused on making them the intel agency they are today and had this huge push for “CHS’s,” many of whom are scumbags and the information from them being highly questionable. He set the stage to where some of the things being done today are possible, even though he himself was more objective / neutral and professional vs. his successor Comey.

The vast power of the FBI is an argument in support of your course of action. The FBI is this nations only 1.) law enforcement and 2.) Intel agency. Dual hatted they have incredible powers especially since they are oriented inward. Politicized, this agency can sway elections without folks realizing what happened. Imagine Trump Tower being surveilled in 2016 and the intel collected being fed to folks on the other side. Imagine the director of the FBI leaking derogatory information collected using FISA powers to the media, allowing his agency to claim Russian collusion stories are real (even though he knew they were not), suppressing Hunters laptop from hell... Imagine the FBI is used in a political purge and three (3) major grass roots opposition leaders (Proud Boys, Oath Takers and one more) are de facto eliminated which means Biden has less trouble in his four years. See where this is going?

The DOJ and FBI allowing themselves to be used as one of the chess pieces in the political games, poses a direct threat to the democratic process.

Not the Russians. Not the Chinese. ***Our own DOJ and FBI poses the greatest threat.***

Expect them to meddle in the next elections as well, especially if the orange man reappears. That said, yes your approach while radical and scary to some, does have merit.