FBI 'Catholic memo' may prove latest example of Biden officials misleading, obstructing Congress

Biden-era officials could face increasing legal pressure over misrepresentations to Congress about administration policy and where it overlapped with President Biden’s health as Republicans clamor for accountability.

Decisions by Biden Administration officials to hide key evidence, stubbornly delay responses to subpoenaed records, or allegedly cover up President Biden’s declining mental and physical health are facing new scrutiny from congressional Republicans now dealing with a cooperative executive branch. 

The latest internal FBI memos released by Senator Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, put former bureau Director Christopher Wray in hot water over his prior testimony to Congress, which Grassley wrote was “misleading.”  

Targeting Catholics as "radicals"

Those FBI memos show the bureau’s targeting of “radical traditionalist Catholics” was more widespread than former director Christopher Wray told Congress at the time. 

In his 2023 testimony, former FBI Director Wray told Congress that the January 2023 memo that characterized “radical traditionalist Catholics” because they attend Latin Mass as potential violent extremists was “a single product by a single field office.”

However, the production recently turned over to Senator Grassley by the FBI shows the memo, which was compiled by the FBI’s Richmond Field Office, was not only widely distributed throughout the bureau, but was followed by at least 13 additional documents using similar terminology. 

Additionally, nearly 20 intelligence analysts from 13 different field offices spread across the country accessed the memo, and it was also disseminated to more than 1,000 individuals in the FBI in February 2023, the documents show. 

“This raises serious concerns that FBI field offices may have relied on the Richmond memo, and placed groups in their areas of responsibility under suspicion based on reporting from the deeply-biased sources used in the memo,” Grassley wrote in his letter to FBI Director Kash Patel on Tuesday. 

You can read Grassley’s letter and FBI memos below: 

Inspector General: "Errors in professional judgment"

The revelation of the memo in early 2023 sparked a congressional probe into the FBI and a review by the Justice Department’s Inspector General. 

Wray told Congress that the memo “is not something I will defend or excuse” in his July 2023 testimony to the House Judiciary Committee. He also told the members that he ordered the memo “removed from the FBI’s systems.” 

Though the bureau was ultimately cleared of any malicious intent, Inspector General Michael Horowitz found that, though an investigation into one specific individual that represented a threat was necessary, the blanket analysis in the memo linking traditional Roman Catholicism with violent extremism “lacked sufficient evidence” and “evinced errors in professional judgment.”

Grassley criticized the former director for obstructing his probe into the memo and accused him of participating in a possible “pattern of deception” in his testimony. 

“The FBI under Director Wray obstructed my investigation by not providing these answers for many months. Congress needs to know who participated in this obstruction and why the FBI obstructed an inquiry into a memo it had already repudiated,” Grassley wrote.

“My investigation has also focused on Director Wray’s misleading testimony on the scope of the memo’s distribution to other FBI field offices when he testified it was ‘a single product by a single field office.’ I’ve since learned other field offices provided input into the memo’s production,” Grassley wrote later. 

"This was highly material information that Director Wray should have revealed,” he continued. "I and other members had already expressed concern as to whether the memo’s production was isolated to Richmond or part of a larger problem. Testimony calling it the work of a single field office was misleading at best, and appears to be part of a pattern of intentional deception,” Grassley continued. 

Other high-level Biden officials contradicted themselves

Biden's Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas also faced scrutiny from congressional Republicans over his sworn testimony during the administration. The House Judiciary Committee in 2023 alleged that Mayorkas may have perjured himself when he told Congress the border was secure from illegal aliens with terrorist ties. 

Mayorkas previously told the committee that all aliens presenting a national security threat encountered at the border are detained and removed. However, public reporting showed the FBI was struggling to locate more than 12 migrants that were smuggled into the country by an ISIS-tied smuggler. 

“These reports seem to directly contradict your testimony under oath that all aliens encountered at the border who pose national security threats are detained and removed. Even if the national security threat was not apparent when these aliens were screened, the Administration’s open-border policies still has created a national security threat to all Americans,” House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan wrote to Mayorkas. 

House Republicans eventually attempted to impeach Mayorkas with double-pronged charges. The first article of impeachment alleged the secretary willfully failed to comply with federal immigration law. The second article alleged that Mayorkas "breached the public trust” over the purported lies to Congress. 

That impeachment effort failed when Senate Democrats succeeded in dismissing the articles. A trial was never held. 

House Republicans also attempted to hold Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland, in contempt of Congress for his failure to comply with duly issued subpoenas from the House Oversight Committee related to its probe of the Justice Department investigation into President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents. 

“This is not a complicated matter. The Oversight and Judiciary Committees issued duly authorized, legal subpoenas to Attorney General Garland for a certain set of documents, including the audio recordings of Special Counsel Hur’s interview with President Biden. The Attorney General has refused to produce these audio recordings,” House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer said in a speech in support of the contempt resolution. 

Ultimately, the House failed to hold Garland in contempt. 

The autopen question: "Who was calling the shots?"

House Republicans and the Trump administration also plan to ramp up investigations into the Biden Administration for the use of an autopen to sign several documents in Biden's name, including pardons, in the waning days of his term. The recent admissions of Biden's mental capacity being suboptimal are fueling the mystery: Did Biden know what was being signed in his name? 

Comer on Wednesday announced that his committee would probe Biden’s use of the autopen by gathering testimony from former senior administration officials and staff. These include former Senior Advisor to the President Michael Donilon, former Senior Advisor to the President for Communications Anita Dunn, former Chief of Staff Ron Klain, former Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Bruce Reed, and former Counselor to the President Steve Ricchetti, Just the News reported. 

"They must appear before the House Oversight Committee and provide truthful answers about President Biden’s cognitive state and who was calling the shots,” Comer wrote. 

President Trump also ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate the autopen use specifically to identify "whether certain individuals conspired to deceive the public about Biden's mental state and unconstitutionally exercise the authorities and responsibilities of the President.” 

President Biden pushed back on the probes on Wednesday. “Let me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency. I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false,” Biden said in a statement.