‘This is exactly the congressional oversight that is needed’
By 
(Photo by Nick Castelli on Unsplash)
[Editor’s note: This story was published by The Daily Signal.]
By S.A. McCarthy
The Daily Signal
Eight members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence published a letter last week to FBI Director Christopher Wray, giving him until Sept. 29 to explain how the Richmond, Virginia, field office crafted a memo detailing plans to unconstitutionally spy on American Catholics and to report what measures he and other FBI leadership are putting in place to ensure religious liberty is never threatened in this way again.
Republican Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida, James Risch of Idaho, Susan Collins of Maine, Tom Cotton of Arkansas, John Cornyn of Texas, Jerry Moran of Kansas, James Lankford of Oklahoma, and Mike Rounds of South Dakota wrote in their letter:The mission of the FBI is “to protect the American people and uphold the Constitution of the United States.” This memorandum and its underlying processes neither protect the American people, nor uphold the Constitution. The FBI does not exist to harass law-abiding Americans, nor will Congress permit FBI to do so.
Arielle Del Turco, director of the Center for Religious Liberty at the Family Research Council, commented to The Washington Stand, “I’m glad members of Congress are holding Director Wray accountable. This is exactly the congressional oversight that is needed as the Biden administration continues to weaponize U.S. agencies to serve its political agenda.”
The memo in question was leaked earlier this year from the FBI’s Richmond field office. Based on biased classifications from the left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the report described “radical traditionalist Catholics” as potential “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists.” The memo laid out plans for the FBI to infiltrate and spy on American Catholics who attend the Tridentine Mass, the form of the Mass used prior to the Second Vatican Council and which was promoted by the now-deceased Pope Benedict XVI. The SPLC classifies “radical traditionalist Catholics” as a hate group, placing them on its “hate list” alongside the likes of the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, and “racist skinheads.”