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Home – Political News – FBI Followed Catholic Priests, Worked With Foreign Intelligence, Continued Richmond Memo Work After Removal Order

FBI Followed Catholic Priests, Worked With Foreign Intelligence, Continued Richmond Memo Work After Removal Order

A new Justice Department report reveals that FBI personnel opened investigations into two Catholic priests, conducted surveillance tied to the Richmond Catholic Memo, and continued revising the memo after headquarters ordered it deleted.

The report reveals how an investigation into a violent extremist led to the surveillance of clergy affiliated with traditional Catholicism, though the FBI ultimately concluded the priests posed no national security threat. The report also sheds new light on internal disputes on the reliability of the Southern Poverty Law Center.

“This Department of Justice will not tolerate a weaponized bureaucracy that chills First Amendment activity,” Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement on the report, compiled by the Justice Department’s Weaponization Working Group. He noted that the individuals who developed the Richmond Domain Perspective are no longer at the FBI.

“The Richmond Perspective was a clear abuse of power, targeting conservative and religious beliefs disfavored by agents of government who lacked necessary oversight,” Assistant Attorney General Stanley E. Woodward, Jr., said.

The Jan. 23, 2023, memo, published by the Richmond FBI field office and leaked in February, became notorious for adopting the Southern Poverty Law Center’s framing of “radical traditional Catholics” as extremist.

Then-FBI Director Christopher Wray testified in July 2023 that the memo came from “a single product in a........

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