The demonization and investigation of traditional Catholics by the FBI was more widespread than Director Wray admitted before the House Judiciary Committee.

Here’s the report from the WSJ:

Remember the tempest this year when the Federal Bureau of Investigation was found to be targeting some Catholics as “extremists?” The bureau cast it as the work of a single rogue field office. Well, it looks like the effort was more widespread than our G-men admitted to the public.

That’s the news from a less-redacted internal FBI document released Wednesday by the House Judiciary Committee. Chairman Jim Jordan wants more information from the FBI on how broad this investigation really was.

This story began in February when a whistleblower leaked a heavily redacted January report from the FBI’s Richmond office: “Interest of Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists in Radical-Traditionalist Catholic Ideology Almost Certainly Presents New Mitigation Opportunities.”

The document defined “radical-traditionalist Catholics” as those who attend the Latin Mass and who frequently adhere to “anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ, and white supremacist ideology.” The agents relied on half-baked “open-source” reporting from liberal outlets to justify more bureau investigation.

At the end of last month, the FBI provided a less redacted document which showed three different FBI offices involved in this demonization of Catholics:

On July 25 the FBI finally provided the committee with a less-redacted version of that Richmond document. The report says that its information on Catholics was “primarily derived” from an “FBI Richmond contact”; an “FBI Portland liaison contact” who informed on a subject who “gravitated to” traditionalist catholicism; and an “FBI Undercover Employee” who reported on a subject who attended a Catholic church in California.

It also says the FBI’s Los Angeles field office “initiated an investigation” into a subject, and that the Richmond office “[c]oordinated with” FBI Portland to prepare the field report. In other words, this was a widespread bureau effort. Why was this suspicion about religion so widespread at the FBI?

Also troubling is the FBI’s decision to redact the Portland and Los Angeles roles from the original version of the Richmond document it provided Congress in March. In a letter with the less-redacted version, acting assistant FBI director Christopher Dunham said the redactions had been necessary to protect “information specific to ongoing criminal investigations.”

It’s a shame Obama appointed Christopher Wray because he’s been a terrible FBI Director. Oh wait, that wasn’t Obama, that was Trump who appointed him. I thought he always picked the best people??

Speaking of Trump, DeSantis highlighted this report a little while ago and vowed to fire Wray if he becomes president: