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The FBI hid the grade of what immoderate lawmakers person called an anti-Catholic cognition targeting churchgoers during the Biden administration, contempt then-agency Director Christopher Wray telling Congress that the substance was constricted to a azygous 2023 memo, according to documents released Tuesday.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who serves arsenic the Senate Judiciary Committee chair, released documents that helium said amusement the FBI engaged successful the probe of accepted Catholics. During his tenure, Wray characterized the substance arsenic portion of a memo prepared by the FBI's bureau successful Richmond, Virginia.
"I’m determined to get to the bottommost of the Richmond memo, and of the FBI’s contempt for oversight successful the past administration," Grassley said successful a statement. "I look guardant to continuing to enactment with you to reconstruct the FBI to excellence and beryllium erstwhile again that justness tin and indispensable beryllium reasonably and evenly administered, unsighted to whether we are Democrats oregon Republicans, believers oregon nonbelievers."
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Former FBI Director Christopher Wray successful 2017 (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
In a missive Tuesday to FBI Director Kash Patel, Grassley presented his findings portion expressing vexation astatine the agency's handling of the "anti-Catholic" memo nether Wray and its alleged deficiency of transparency. Wray had told legislature lawmakers the memo was a azygous merchandise by a azygous tract office.
Despite Wray's claims that the memo was a azygous product, the FBI recovered astatine slightest 13 further FBI documents and 5 FBI attachments that utilized the terminology "radical traditionalist Catholic" and cited the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Grassley said.
The FBI told Fox News Digital that it received Grassley's missive but declined to remark further.
During his grounds to lawmakers, Wray didn't uncover the beingness of a 2nd draught merchandise connected the aforesaid topic.
"It was a merchandise by 1 tract office, which, of course, we person scores and scores of these products, and erstwhile we recovered retired astir it, we took action," Wray told the Senate Select Committee connected Intelligence astir the memo successful March 2023.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, right, is criticizing erstwhile FBI Director Christopher Wray regarding a 2023 memo astir the agency's targeting of Catholic groups during the Biden administration. (Getty Images)
The memo became known erstwhile a whistleblower brought it to light. The memo, titled "Interest of Racially oregon Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists successful Radical-Traditionalist Catholic Ideology Almost Certainly Presents New Mitigation Opportunities," drew instant disapproval from Republicans, who demanded contiguous answers from the agency.
A 2nd FBI memo drafted by the FBI Richmond Field Office for bureau-wide organisation repeated the unfounded nexus betwixt accepted Catholicism and convulsive extremism, Grassley said, noting that it was ne'er published owed to backlash aft the nationalist disclosure of the archetypal memo.
The caller documents released by Grassley amusement that the Richmond memo was distributed to much than 1,000 FBI employees nationwide. One email speech shows the FBI's tract bureau successful Buffalo, New York, expressing concerns astir hatred groups identified by the SPLC, mentioned successful the Richmond memo, being successful its country of responsibility.
Grassley said the FBI whitethorn person relied connected "deeply-biased sources" utilized successful the memo.
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"These letters focused connected the mentation of the memo, its dissemination, the usage of biased sources specified arsenic the extremist Southern Poverty Law Center, and later, the FBI's misleading representations to Congress, including those of erstwhile Director Wray," Grassley wrote.
Fox News Digital has reached retired to the SPLC.
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