The FBI memo that labeled traditional Catholics as "racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists" was not as isolated as believed, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, told Newsmax on Tuesday.
Jordan's committee issued an interim staff report Tuesday that revealed FBI Director Kash Patel produced more than 1,300 pages of documents not disclosed by the Biden administration relating to the memorandum, which was issued in 2023 from the FBI's field office in Richmond, Virginia.
"There are two key takeaways here," Jordan told "The Record With Greta Van Susteren."
Former FBI Director Christopher Wray "wasn't exactly clear with us, didn't tell us all the information," he said.
"Because when Chris Wray testified in front of our committee, he said that this was isolated. 'As soon as we found out about it, we got rid of it. It was only in the Richmond field office of the FBI.'
"That's not true, because Kash Patel gave us a lot of documents that Chris Wray never did. And it shows that this was bigger than the Richmond FBI. It involved the Louisville [Kentucky] FBI, and it involved London," he said, referencing the FBI's London office.
Jordan said the second key takeaway is what the Richmond field office did to a priest at a local Catholic church who was under investigation in what would serve as the basis for the memorandum. After the priest declined to share information, the FBI surveilled the priest and opened an investigative assessment into him.
"Remember, this whole idea that if you're a traditional Catholic, somehow you're extremist. That was the motivation behind this," Jordan said.
"They talked to this priest. They went and interviewed him and asked him to give information on one of the parishioners who was talking to him. I mean, to violate the pastor-parishioner, priest-penitent relationship that is so important, such a standard in our law — they asked him to violate that," he said.
"And they said, 'We felt he could do that because the guy who was talking to the priest hadn't been baptized.' And we're like, are you kidding me? This is how bad it was."
Jordan said the FBI obtained the priest's credit card information and was monitoring his transactions "as he was trying to minister, guide, and counsel this individual."
"That's how ridiculous this was," he said. "And Chris Wray never told his any of that. ... Whether he knew he was lying to us or not, we don't know. But what he conveyed to us was not accurate.
"And the documents that we now have were not given to us back then when he was director, when we asked for them. So that's a problem. We'll just have to see as we dig through this even more."
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Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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