The FBI has now disowned its disgraceful dossier flagging multiple Catholic groups for “anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ and white supremacist ideology” — but only after getting publicly exposed. It’s yet another sign of rank politicization, and blatant incompetence, in the nation’ top law-enforcement agency.
The central Justice Department assigned the FBI’s Richmond office to draw up the target list, which then circulated nationwide. An active-duty G-man leaked it to former Special Agent Matt Seraphin, who broke the news at Uncoverdc.com.
Then the Bureau killed it.
For the record, the dossier simply flagged Catholic groups that prefer the old Latin Mass, largely superseded after Vatican II in the early ’60s but still loved for its beauty and universal vision. For this, the G-men relied on the thoroughly discredited Southern Poverty Law Center, an outfit that raises big bucks by flogging lefty hysteria.
Notably, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions years ago ordered the entire Justice Department to stop relying on the SPLC after it got caught slandering Muslim reformers and mislabeling religious-freedom groups. Did Attorney General Merrick Garland quietly rescind that order?
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After all, this follows Garland’s highly political noise about siccing the FBI on parents who speak up at school-board meetings, not to mention the Bureau’s politicized bumbling in the Russiagate investigation, turning bogus opposition research commissioned by the Hillary Clinton campaign into a phony scandal that (with disgraceful media collusion) plagued the Trump administration for years.
Don’t forget its utter botching of the Hillary Clinton email “probe,” which somehow ignored the former secretary of state’s years-long, illegal retention of classified info and willful destruction of evidence.
Bad enough that this anti-Catholic farce diverted resources from the work the FBI should be doing, suggesting that its entire anti-domestic-terror effort is a complete fraud. Far worse is that it shows the Bureau (at least, the high command in DC) hasn’t remotely mended its ways after all those embarrassments.
One more thing for House Republicans to investigate about the political weaponization of the federal government. FBI boss Chris Wray needs to testify, under oath, about what if anything he’s doing to get the Bureau back on track.
