Back when an FBI memo regarding “Violent Extremists in Radical-Traditionalist Catholic Ideology” showed up, Christopher Wray expressed what seemed to be the appropriate level of shock, along with promises to do better. At the time, he told the House Judiciary Committee that he was “aghast,” and that “we do not conduct investigations based on religious affiliation or practices, full stop.”
That sounded pretty good, right? Maybe it was just one rogue office in Richmond where that was going on. A bit of retraining and updates to the Bureau’s standard practices might just get us back on track. It sounded like a plan. Of course, now Wray is going to need to explain how it was that the FBI recruited an “undercover employee” to develop “sources” among the clergy and leadership of the Catholic Church. We learned this from Jim Jordan this week and a subpoena was quickly issued to Wray to compel his “full cooperation.” (National Review)
As part of its effort to identify extremists in the Catholic Church, the FBI recruited at least one “undercover employee” to “develop sources among the clergy and church leadership,” Representative Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) revealed Monday.
Jordan, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, issued a subpoena demanding FBI director Christopher Wray testify and provide more information to Congress about the federal agency’s intelligence-gathering initiative targeting Catholic Americans.
“This shocking information reinforces our need for all responsive documents, and the Committee is issuing a subpoena to you to compel your full cooperation,” Jordan claimed in the letter.
One rogue director at a field office might be understandable. But two? Well, I suppose… maybe? Still, this is looking more like a feature than a bug at this point.
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To be clear, if the FBI receives specific, credible information that a church (of any type) is being used by members to plan or commit crimes, then by all means they should be able to investigate. That would apply to Catholic or Protestant churches, synagogues, or mosques.
But that’s not what the FBI has been up to by the sound of all of this. It seems as if a rationale is being put forward saying that congregants at a particular set of churches are “more likely” to be brewing extremist plots based on the religion they practice. Based on that alone, the Bureau would start fishing around to see if they could come up with a crime to charge.
This is simply inexcusable but it’s also very reminiscent of how liberal prosecutors have been handling the affairs of the Trump family and business empire. ‘Show us the family or business and we’ll find you a crime if we dig around long enough.’ This is more blatant banana republic insanity. To see it happening in America in the modern era is beyond alarming.
The choice of targets also raises additional questions. I’m old enough to remember when any suggestion of investigating activities at mosques that appeared to be funneling money to ISIS was decried as being racist, xenophobic, and every other label in the book. You weren’t supposed to make generalizations about Muslims or any other group (which is obviously true). But it would appear that at some point the script was flipped. “Radical” Catholics who preferred to attend traditional masses held in Latin are fair game. And just for the record, I say this as a Protestant.
The housecleaning at the FBI can’t start soon enough. We’re still getting some whistleblowers coming forward from inside the Bureau, so the agency should remain salvageable, or at least I hope so. But the current situation is simply unacceptable.
