The FBI got busted again. They’re working real hard to word an explanation for Christopher Wray to use the next time he talks to Congress about their targeting of Catholics. The House Judiciary Committee already warned him to get his story straight. Anything he says can and will be used against him in contempt of Congress hearings.
FBI office’s coordinated efforts
Praying the Rosary was grounds for opening an FBI investigation but Christopher Wray swore up and down to Congress that it’s no big deal. He testified that the memo targeting Catholic traditionalists as potential domestic terror suspects was “a product by one field office.”
Chris is expected to stick with that story, even though the Judiciary Committee learned that “multiple” field offices “were involved in drafting” that memo. It came out internally back in January of 2023 and suggested that “traditionalist Catholic groups were potential hotbeds of domestic extremism.”
When the committee got their hands on “a less redacted version” of the memo, the first thing that jumped out at them was where the FBI had previously blacked out reference to a “liaison contact” at the Portland Field Office “as well as information from the from the Los Angeles Field Office.” Jim Jordan pointed that out on August 9, in a letter to the alleged director.
FBI Director Wray swore that a bigoted probe on Catholics was “a single product by a single field office.” In fact the report was coordinated between employees and contacts in Richmond, Portland and California. Director Wray must be called back to account. https://t.co/LkvNgxZzGj
— David Asman (@DavidAsmanfox) August 10, 2023
He had help writing it from Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government Chairman Mike Johnson. The first thing Wray needs to explain is “why you redacted this information in previous versions of the document you produced to the Committee.” Like Chris is going to admit it was done intentionally to hide potentially damaging evidence from the oversight investigators.
“[T]he newly produced version of the document explicitly states that FBI Richmond ‘[c]oordinated with‘ FBI Portland in preparing the assessment.”
“Thus, it appears that both FBI Portland and FBI Los Angeles field offices were involved in or contributed to the creation of FBI’s assessment of traditional Catholics as potential domestic terrorists.” So, what do you have to say to that?
More than one office involved
Even though the memo was clearly the work of more than one office, Wray is expected to play word games “proving” that it was still “a product by one field office.” Technically speaking. No, he didn’t try to cover the fact up or obstruct a Congressional investigation or commit contempt of Congress or anything.
The memo written by three FBI branch offices, then “produced” by only one of them had the catchy title, “Interest of Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists in Radical-Traditionalist Catholic Ideology Almost Certainly Presents New Mitigation Opportunities.”
“FBI Richmond assesses the increasingly observed interest of racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists (RMVEs) in radical-traditionalist Catholic (RTC) ideology almost certainly presents opportunities for threat mitigation through the exploration of new avenues for tripwire and source development.”
Catholic Symbology Indicates Domestic Terrorism, According to the FBI
Multiple FBI field offices’ collaborated over anti-Catholic memo
Including
FBI officials in the bureau’s Portland field office as well as intelligence from the agency’s Los Angeles office.
Director Wray… pic.twitter.com/YpMr40RNkZ
— The CotoBuzz Journal (@CotoBlogzz) August 10, 2023
That means infiltrating churches with undercover informants. Any Catholic who opposed “abortion rights and other policies” were deemed “would-be terrorists.”
When Jordan grilled Wray about that memo, under oath, Chris swore up and down that it was someone’s isolated lapse of judgment which was instantly clamped down on. He forgets to mention that nothing was done until the public heard about it first. “As soon as I found out about it, I was aghast and ordered it withdrawn and removed from FBI systems,” Wray testified.
The bureau only showed the less redacted version under threat of contempt. Now that they saw what was hidden from them earlier, they “extended Wray the opportunity” to “amend your testimony to fully explain the nature and scope of the FBI’s assessment.” Oh, and by the way, set up “a transcribed interview with the Chief Division Counsel who approved the Richmond document.“
