FBI Analysts Learn the Anti-Catholic Memo Crew Can’t Hide Behind ‘Just Following Orders’
FBI Director Kash Patel fired five FBI employees tied to the 2023 Richmond memo that treated “radical traditionalist Catholics” as a possible pipeline to violent extremism.
The fired group included four intelligence analysts and one supervisory analyst. David Laufman, lawyer for the employees, confirmed the termination and called it unjust.
Patel took over an FBI still carrying the smell of a memo that should've died before it ever left Virginia.
The Richmond Field Office product warned about a supposed link between racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists and traditional Catholic belief. The memo leaned on weak sourcing and suggested agents develop sources inside Catholic churches and related groups.
Chris Wray, then FBI director, pulled the document after former FBI special agent Kyle Seraphin made it public. Merrick Garland, then U.S. attorney general, called the memo appalling. From WSLS.
The January 2023 intelligence product produced by analysts in the FBI's Richmond, Virginia, field office emerged as a political flashpoint after it was issued, with Republicans in Congress repeatedly citing it as part of their broader contention that the FBI during the Biden administration was targeting conservatives.
Then-director Chris Wray repeatedly denied that charge and the FBI has said the document was quickly retracted and an internal review was launched. Merrick Garland, the attorney general under President Joe Biden, has said he was “appalled” by the memo.
Earlier Justice Department investigations into the memo challenged the analytical tradecraft but did not find intentional misconduct by the analysts involved.
The firings are part of a broader personnel purge under Patel, a Trump loyalist who over the last year, has pushed out dozens of employees who either contributed to investigations of the president or who were perceived as not in alignment with the administration’s agenda. The Justice Department has engaged in similarly sweeping firings of prosecutors since Trump took office last year.
In February, for instance, the FBI fired a group of counterintelligence agents who participated in the investigation into President Donald Trump over his retention of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.
Plenty of Catholics had another word for it: outrageous.
The Justice Department review, which Michael Horowitz, then-inspector general, led, found no malicious intent or improper purpose behind the memo.
Pfft!
Fine; even bad judgment lacks cartoon villain music.
The same review still said the memo failed analytic standards, lacked enough evidence, and created the appearance that the FBI had considered religious beliefs as a basis for investigative activity.
The memo was sloppy, thin, and dangerous enough to scare people who still think the First Amendment means what it says.
The later congressional work went further. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, released a report arguing the FBI's own record showed a broader effort than officials first admitted. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, also pressed the bureau over related records. From the New York Post:
Documents released by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) on Tuesday appear to contradict former FBI Director Christopher Wray’s claim that a controversial 2023 memo targeting “radical traditionalist Catholics” was a one-off and the work of a single bureau field office.
Extent of FBI’s targeting of ‘radical traditionalist Catholics’ greater than Biden officials claimed, GOP senator reveals
The Biden-era FBI chief told House lawmakers in July of 2023 that the memo – which described the purported overlaps between Catholics who oppose abortion rights and would-be terrorists as an opportunity for “threat mitigation” and “source development” – was “a single product by a single field office.”
However, the new FBI files obtained by Grassley show the bureau produced “at least 13 additional documents and five attachments that used anti-Catholic terminology,” as well as a second memo updating the FBI’s Richmond Field Office’s case against “radical” Catholics.
When congressional investigators have to drag basic answers out of a federal law enforcement agency, confidence doesn't merely fade: It gets mugged in an alley and told to stop asking questions.
The defense now sounds painfully familiar. The fired analysts say, through counsel and allies, that they were following instructions and working under supervisors. That may explain how the memo moved through the building, but it doesn't excuse the result.
“Just following orders” has a miserable history, because it tries to turn conscience into paperwork. Americans don't give federal employees badges, paychecks, and access to intelligence systems so they can shrug when constitutional lines get crossed.
Catholics who attend the Latin Mass, oppose abortion, or hold older church views don't become federal concerns because an analyst found activist language and stapled it to intelligence jargon.
Real threats deserve real attention. Law enforcement can investigate violence, plots, weapons, threats, and criminal networks. Prayer books, Mass preference, and orthodox beliefs aren't probable cause.
Once the bureau starts confusing unpopular faith with danger, the problem no longer sits in a single field office.
Patel's firings send a message every FBI employee should understand. Religious liberty doesn't sit below office politics. Supervisors don't get to launder bad analysis through a chain of command and call the final product “just work.”
The anti-Catholic crew helped build a document that painted faithful Americans with suspicion and then watched the bureau spend years explaining why everyone should stop noticing.
Accounting arrived late, but late beats never.
The FBI needs Americans to believe its agents chase criminals, not churchgoers. Patel just gave the bureau a chance to prove it, and the lesson should be simple enough for Washington to grasp, though Washington often makes simple things expensive and ugly.
If an order points to the government toward religious Americans who haven't broken the law, the answers shouldn't be a memo.
The answer should be NO.
