SW News: The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on Tuesday, July 25, handed over to the United States Congress internal documents relating to a now-withdrawn leaked memo calling for profiling Catholics attached to the Traditional Latin Mass. This came after Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, who is the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, threatened the bureau director Christopher Wray with contempt for procrastinating the responses to subpoenas with regard to the so-called violations of the First Amendment by the FBI.

Dated January 23, the memo was issued by the Richmond office of the bureau and it raised the alarm about ethnically motivated extremists resorting to what it termed a “radical traditionalist Catholic ideology” ahead of the general elections. The Committee was allowed access to all documents related to the memo. However, the bureau made a request saying that any information should not be propagated without consulting it beforehand.

The so-called violations involve the FBI probe of parents who voiced their discomfort at public school board meetings and the memo itself which called for profiling traditional Catholics by linking them to the far-right white nationalist movement. In February, the contents of the memo were leaked and it caused a furor among American Catholic prelates and believers alike. In that scenario, about 20 state attorneys general signed a letter to US Attorney General Merrick Garland condemning the bureau’s diktat.

In a letter addressed to Jordan, the Bureau’s acting assistant director Christopher Dunham said the memo did not meet the standards of the FBI. He explained that their Inspection Division is conducting a probe regarding the origin of the memo.
Although Dunham said that the bureau handed over the necessary documents to the House Committee in response to the subpoenas, the latter said in a press release that the documents were redacted and some of the requested files were not given.