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House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) demanded the FBI turn over documents about a withdrawn memo that labeled traditional Catholics as possible violent extremists in a Thursday letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray .

The memo originated in the FBI's Richmond field office and said that communities of "radical traditionalist Catholics," groups of Catholics who prefer the traditional Latin mass, provided opportunities for "mitigation" and the FBI should explore investigating such communities. The existence of the memo was revealed by an FBI whistleblower and was later withdrawn. The FBI said the memo did not meet the agency's "exacting standards."


"In the wake of the backlash against the FBI’s anti-Catholic document, the FBI withdrew the document and blamed the local level field office for its creation and dissemination," Jordan and Johnson wrote in the letter to Wray. "However, there remain many questions about the genesis, review, and approval of this document, as well as the FBI’s commitment to upholding First Amendment protected activity."

The letter blasted the FBI for citing a number of left-wing sources in the memo, including the Southern Poverty Law Center, as justification for targeting traditionalist Catholic groups for surveillance.


"The SPLC routine[ly] maligns several mainstream conservative and religious organizations as 'hate' groups, simply because the SPLC disagrees with their views," the representatives wrote. "The fact that the FBI would blindly accept and regurgitate the SPLC’s spin is highly concerning and undercuts the FBI’s assertion that it is unbiased and politically neutral."

The lawmakers demanded that the FBI turn over all documents related to the memo, as well as any intelligence efforts targeting so-called "radical traditionalist Catholics." Jordan and Johnson also demanded that the agency provide a list of the employees involved with drafting and approving the memo.

The efforts by Jordan and Johnson follow a similarly scathing letter from Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares to Wray. Miyares wrote that he and a number of other Republican attorneys general were "horrified" by the revelation of the memo and demanded Wray reveal whether or not the agency had been actively surveilling houses of worship.

Meanwhile, Catholic political advocacy groups called on Congress to investigate the FBI and the Biden administration over the memo.

In a statement last week, Catholic Vote President Brian Burch said the memo's existence required answers from the executive branch and condemned the FBI for using sources such as the SPLC.

"The FBI’s partnership with a discredited left-wing activist organization directly violates agency guidelines and makes a mockery of the Department of Justice’s claims to fairly and impartially apply the law," Burch said. "Further, the growing pattern of hostility toward Catholics by the Biden administration, from its failure to properly address violence against Catholic churches, to the relentless persecution of innocent pro-life advocates, deserves far more scrutiny by this Congress. Retracting this memo isn’t nearly enough. It only raises more questions and underscores how wrong the FBI was. We demand Congress investigate this abuse of power."