[Catholic Caucus] Investigators Raid Offices of President of U.S. Catholic Bishops

But the assistant district attorney in charge of the investigation said that a search of the church offices was necessary because the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston had turned over only a portion of the evidence.

Father LaRosa-Lopez worked for the archdiocese for decades. Cardinal DiNardo had assigned him to work in a parish and appointed him as the vicar for Hispanics for the archdiocese, despite knowing that Father LaRosa-Lopez had been accused in 2001 of molesting a teenage girl.

Here are two very badly written consecutive paragraphs from this article:

The law enforcement officers who searched the archdiocesan offices on Wednesday were from the Texas Rangers, the Conroe Police Department, the Montgomery County district attorney’s office and other federal agencies, Mr. Dunman said, though he declined to specify which agencies. They combed through the building searching for documents, electronic communications and other evidence. (My emphasis.)

The Justice Department declined to comment, and it is unclear whether any of its agents were involved in the search of the archdiocese in Houston. The investigation of Father LaRosa-Lopez was underway before the Justice Department warned American bishops not to destroy their files.

The term "other federal agencies" in the first paragraph refers back to a group of state and local agencies and the article starts out by mentioning state, local and federal agencies, so we don't know which agencies were involved. The second paragraph adds to the confusion by saying it's unclear whether any DOJ agents were involved in the search.

However, in spite of the author's inability to do meaningful research, there's a good chance some federal agents from DOJ were involved because there are two ongoing DOJ grand jury investigations, one emanating from Philadelphia and one from Buffalo, neither of which she mentions. The RC Church has also been given a federal notice to preserve all of its sex abuse records.

Hence, I'm going to speculate on what's actually happening. My guess is that the DOJ was informed of this raid, asked to participate, and was allowed to. That, solely IMHO, means the federal investigation is going full blast and really threatens the RC Church. Stay tuned for more.

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