In a letter dated June 2, 2025, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) addressed FBI director Kash Patel regarding the FBI’s handling of an internal memo targeting Catholics — exposed in 2023 by FBI whistleblower Kyle Seraphin.  Prepared by the Richmond, Virginia field office, the memo linked “radical traditionalist Catholics” to violent extremism, allegedly setting field agents on the dubious mission of monitoring Catholics for evidence of radicalization and “white supremacy.”  The memo shows that FBI officials were proposing the development of sources in the Church, “interviewing a priest and choir director affiliated with a Catholic church in Richmond, Virginia.”

Although the memo cited a single investigation involving a subject who self-identified as a “radical-traditionalist Catholic,” a December 2023 press release revealed that

FBI employees could not define the meaning of an RTC when preparing, editing, or reviewing the memorandum. Even so, this single investigation became the basis for an FBI-wide memorandum warning about the dangers of “radical” Catholics.

According to Grassley, “the documents received pursuant to the Committee’s subpoena show there was no legitimate basis for the memorandum to insert federal law enforcement into Catholic houses of worship.”

The senator’s latest letter follows a December 4, 2023 Interim Staff Report from the House Judiciary Committee and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government referencing what is now known as the “Catholic memorandum.”  That report revealed the memo — originally titled: “Interest of Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists in Radical-Traditionalist Catholic Ideology Almost Certainly Presents New Mitigation Opportunities” — warned of extremism tied to traditional Catholic practices, especially the traditional Latin Mass and the potential for extremist views linked to white nationalism.

Grassley’s letter also follows four prior requests from the House Judiciary Committee — filed in March, August, and October of 2023, and again in January 2024.”  Grassley stated he would continue “seeking answers about the anti-Catholic ‘Domain Perspective’” memo.  Grassley and House Judiciary committee members are concerned about the politicization of the FBI with its reliance on biased sources, such as the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), and the potential for religious profiling.

The letter reveals that, contrary to responses from FBI leaders, the memo was widely distributed across various FBI field offices, including but not limited to Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Portland, Louisville, and Buffalo.  According to Judiciary’s investigation, the memo was “disseminated in the FEESUM email distro to more than 1000 individuals in the FBI on 2 February 2023,” before any disclosure about its existence was made.  Grassley’s letter makes repeated mentions of evasive or misleading responses about the memo from former director Christopher Wray.

New documents also reveal an email from the Buffalo office expressing concern about the memo’s content, noting that two of the nine “RTC Hate Groups” identified by the SPLC were located in the Buffalo area.

Following public disclosure of the memo, the FBI conducted a search and identified at least 13 other documents and five attachments that used similar terminology, such as “radical traditionalist Catholic.”  These documents also reportedly relied, in part, on the SPLC as a source.  Grassley is now asking to see those documents and attachments.

Grassley claims tgat Wray was deceptive in his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on July 12, 2023, referencing a Strategic Review Report finalized in April 2023.  Despite evidence to the contrary, Grassley asserts that Wray and other FBI respondents claimed the review was “‘ongoing’ and refused to answer on that basis my [Grassley’s] questions” during the hearing.

Newer documents reveal Wray also allegedly misled Congress “on the scope of the memo’s distribution to other FBI field offices.”  Instead, he told Congress that the memo was “a single product by a single office.”  According to Grassley, “this was highly material information that Director Wray should have revealed” because members were “expressly concerned” about whether the memo was “isolated to Richmond or part of a larger problem.”  Grassley accused Wray of “a pattern of intentional deception” during the July 2023 hearing.  In response to a question from the senator, Wray stated:

So, Senator, I think that this notion that other field offices were involved is a garble, and let me explain why I say that. The only involvement of the two other field offices was the Richmond authors of the product included two sentences or something thereabouts referencing each of these other offices’ cases, and they sent those sentences about the other offices’ cases to them, not the whole product, and asked them, “Hey, did we describe your case right?” That’s all the other offices had. So it was a single field office’s product, and I stand by that.

Judiciary also found that files related to the memo were deleted, “ordered by then-FBI-Deputy-Director Paul Abbate.”  According to Grassley’s letter, Abbate ordered “a permanent removal of the memorandum, as well as any edits or references, from all FBI systems.”  In fact, he told the special agent in charge of the Richmond Field Office to “‘pull it down,’ the same day the memo was made public,” according to the June 2 letter.  The FBI stated that they might be able to recover the deleted information, but as of August 2024, “no such files were ever produced.”

Grassley’s June 2025 letter provides many redacted documents related to the investigation, including correspondence among the field offices referencing the memo.  Grassley requested removal of the redactions, especially the ones related to who was involved in the deletions, why the deletions were made, and “whether any deleted files have been or can be recovered.”  Given recent allegations of the duplicitous use of “Prohibitive Access” classification to purposely hide information from investigators, the FBI may still be hiding information from the Committee.

There is evidence that the FBI was targeting pro-life activists as early as 2022.  They raided the home of a Catholic man named Mark Houck on September 23, arresting him in front of his seven children.  He was indicted for allegedly assaulting a man, violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, in front of a Planned Parenthood Clinic but was later acquitted.  Grassley mentions the Houck raid in his March 1, 2023 letter, stating,

The FBI memo comes as the Department of Justice (DOJ) apparently has been looking for reasons to marshal its vast resources against religious pro-life advocates. Importantly, Grassley points out that the FBI pursued charges “[e]ven though local authorities declined to press charges and the state complaint filed against him by the alleged victim was dismissed ... and the federal judge overseeing the case “raised the possibility that the case should never have been brought to trial.”

In the same letter, Grassley shares his belief that not only is the FBI likely engaged in unconstitutional activity, but its valuable resources are being diverted to the wrong targets:

The FBI’s limited resources are better spent investigating and arresting those responsible for the heinous attacks on Catholic Churches and pro-life centers around the country rather than trying to infiltrate and investigate Catholic Churches.

The FBI’s most recent demonization of the Catholic Church ... is just another in a long list of stark instances of the weaponization of the Justice Department to target American citizens who are exercising their constitutional rights. It is also further evidence of a worrisome pattern of years of politicization within the FBI.

Image: Chuck Grassley.  Credit: IowaPolitics.com via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.