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 single field office,” though subsequent investigations documented the involvement of multiple field offices.

While the House Judiciary Committee released a report in December 2023 and the Justice Department Inspector General released a report in April 2024, the Weaponization Working Group report reveals new details about the FBI investigation that produced the memo, staff’s decision to keep working on it after headquarters ordered it deleted, and the FBI’s internal criticism of the office for uncritically citing the SPLC.

Following Two Priests

The new report reveals that the FBI opened assessments on two Catholic priests, examined their travel and contacts, and conducted surveillance as part of the investigation that produced the Richmond Catholic Memo.

Priest one served at the church attended by a convicted felon who made violent threats online, and priest two, the first priest’s uncle, had been ordained by Bishop Richard Williamson, who led a group the FBI suspected of being Neo-Nazi.

A Richmond FBI intelligence analyst uncovered material from a foreign law enforcement agency about SSPX Resistance, which Williamson founded after his expulsion from the traditionalist Catholic Society of St. Pius X.

The Richmond office opened a Guardian investigation on priest one, and the FBI researched priest two’s flight and credit card details in January 2023. The Richmond office opened a separate investigation on priest two. The Boston field office conducted surveillance of priest two at the airport. Customs and Border Protection interviewed priest two twice, and searched his phone.

Days after the Richmond Catholic Memo leaked, the FBI closed the investigations into the priests, finding no “identified threat to national security” and no “allegation of federal violation.”

Internal Criticism of the Memo

One day after the memo leaked, the FBI told the Daily Signal that the memo “does not meet the exacting standards of the FBI.” Previous reports have highlighted that FBI staff expressed surprise, saying they were “at the behest of the SPLC,” but the Weaponization Working Group report released a previously unpublished Feb. 21, 2023, Analytic Tradecraft Review.

The review concluded that the memo stated, but did not prove, a connection between racially motivated violent extremists and so-called “radical traditional Catholics.” It also faulted the memo for failing to analyze the SPLC’s credibility.

“The SPLC has a history of having to issue apologies and retract groups and individuals they have identified as being extremist or hate groups,” the review notes. “Since this was reporting on a religious branch of Catholicism that SPLC identified as a hate group, there should have been extra care to caveat the information, which was more subjective than statistical, and examine SPLC’s threshold for determining a hate group and explain how it aligns or differs from the FBI’s definition.”

The Memo’s Aftermath

The Weaponization Working Group report reveals that at least one FBI analyst kept working on the memo after headquarters had ordered its deletion.

The intelligence analyst “sent an email over a month later—on March 17, 2023—stating, ‘I spent time today tinkering with the [Domain Perspective],’ and included a list of ‘major changes’ and ‘a few areas where we could tinker further.'”

Although an FBI review found serious analytical failures and directed that the staff be “admonished,” Richmond field office leadership defended the employees involved, and later gave them positive performance evaluations, according to the Weaponization Working Group report.

The new report, however, gives the final word: “The FBI personnel involved in the creation of the Richmond Catholic Memo have been terminated from their positions.”