Senator Releases Report On Biden DOJ Program
In a revelation that’s stirring significant national debate, newly released documents show the FBI under the Biden administration disseminated a controversial memo suggesting traditionalist Catholic groups may be potential breeding grounds for violent extremism—on a much broader scale than the public was initially led to believe.
According to materials made public by Senator Chuck Grassley, the now-infamous FBI Richmond field office memo wasn’t an isolated incident. Contrary to FBI Director Christopher Wray’s 2023 congressional testimony, the memo had collaborative input from at least three other FBI offices—Portland, Milwaukee, and Louisville—and reached over 1,000 FBI personnel nationwide before it was exposed by a whistleblower.
Grassley’s findings indicate not only a widespread internal distribution of the original memo but also the existence of a follow-up draft, which was ultimately withdrawn amid mounting political backlash.
BREAKING: The Biden FBI’s memo suggesting trad Catholics are an emerging violent extremist threat was sent to more than 1,000 bureau employees across the country, Sen. Grassley’s office says. https://t.co/y3sSTOY5kt
— Hudson Crozier 🇺🇸 (@Hudson_Crozier) June 3, 2025
The original document flagged “Radical-Traditionalist Catholic Ideology” as a growing concern tied to “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremism.” It cited indicators such as rejection of the Second Vatican Council and preference for the Latin Mass—core practices for many devout Catholics—as possible red flags. Perhaps most controversially, the memo recommended cultivating FBI informants within Catholic parishes, a move critics say treads dangerously close to criminalizing faith.
One analyst in the Richmond office allegedly likened conservative Catholic family values to Islamist extremism, drawing a parallel that has since been widely criticized. The memo also leaned on the Southern Poverty Law Center—an activist group known for branding a range of mainstream conservative organizations as hate groups—to justify its assertions.
What elevates the concern even further is the discovery of a second, unreleased FBI draft document that forecasted a rise in extremist recruitment among Catholics leading into the upcoming election cycle. It floated the possibility of radicalization occurring within religious communities but admitted a lack of concrete evidence to support such claims.
The fallout has prompted renewed scrutiny of the Bureau’s neutrality, especially concerning religious liberty. Grassley has called on new FBI Director Kash Patel to disclose further internal records and to reaffirm the Bureau’s commitment to impartial justice.
Meanwhile, the Biden administration’s February executive order establishing a “Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias” appears to acknowledge, at least implicitly, the political and cultural damage caused by the Richmond memo. The order references it directly, casting it as symptomatic of a broader federal pattern of unjust surveillance and profiling of Christian groups.