As we reported previously, Priests for Life, with the assistance of the American Freedom Law Center, sent a Freedom of Information Act request for documents related to the FBI’s targeting of “traditional Catholics.” We recently received our first batch of documents, which were heavily redacted. No real surprise there.
One of the documents was a transcript of the testimony provided to the Senate by Attorney General Merrick Garland. The Attorney General’s testimony was interesting and quite revealing.
First, the Attorney General claimed that the Richmond FBI field office memo, which plainly demonstrates that the FBI was targeting “traditional Catholics,” was “appalling,” further asserting that it was his “understand[ing]” that “the FBI has withdrawn it and it’s now looking into how this could have ever happened.”
However, contrary to the Attorney General’s feigned concern, the documents we received plainly show that the FBI was more concerned about “talking points” to the media and how to spin the controversy than it was about fixing it.
Another interesting, and rather frightening, piece of information was found in an exchange between the Attorney General and Senator Hawley:
Hawley: How many informants do you have in Catholic churches across America?
Garland: I don’t know. And I don’t believe we have any informants aimed at Catholic churches. We have a rule against investigations based on First Amendment activity and Catholic churches are obviously, First Amendment.
Hawley: Well – –
Garland: But I don’t know the specific answer to your question.
The Attorney General doesn’t know!? The answer should be simple and unequivocal: none!
As you can see, there is plenty of smoke here. We are still waiting for additional documents, and we will report what we find.
This weaponization of the government to target conservative people of faith must stop!