DOJ Weaponization Report: FBI Richmond Memo on Traditional Catholics Was a “Grave Failure”

The Justice Department’s Weaponization Working Group released a report late last week concluding that the FBI’s January 23, 2023, Richmond Field Office assessment treated “radical-traditionalist Catholic” beliefs as a domestic-extremism indicator and that agents opened inquiries on two priests, monitored travel and communications, and continued related work after headquarters ordered the memo removed. The Working Group, created after President Trump’s January 20, 2025, Executive Order 14147 on eliminating political weaponization of federal agencies, reviewed internal emails, assessments, and investigative files. It found the Biden-era bureau engaged in “improper and unjustified law enforcement and intelligence activity.” History, the report said, “will rightly judge the Richmond Catholic Memo as a grave failure of the FBI Richmond Field Office.” Attorney General Todd Blanche said the department “will not tolerate a weaponized bureaucracy that chills First Amendment activity” and that the individuals who developed the product are no longer with the department. Associate Attorney General Stanley E. Woodward Jr. called the perspective “a clear abuse of power, targeting conservative and religious beliefs disfavored by agents of government who lacked necessary oversight.”

The internal product, formally a Domain Perspective titled “Interest of Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists in Radical-Traditionalist Catholic Ideology Almost Certainly Presents New Mitigation Opportunities,” was issued January 23, 2023, and leaked February 8, 2023, by former agent Kyle Seraphin. Its thesis was that “increasingly observed interest” of racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists in what it labeled RTC ideology “almost certainly presents opportunities for threat mitigation through the exploration of new avenues for tripwire and source development.” The memo distinguished “traditional Catholics,” described as those who prefer the Traditional Latin Mass and pre-Vatican II teachings, from “RTC adherents,” whom it characterized as embracing antisemitic, anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ, and white-supremacist ideology. An internal presentation titled “Traditionalist Catholicism Overview” treated support for the Latin Mass and “conservative family values/roles” as elements of a supposed core ideology. Reviewers in January 2023 raised no constitutional objections; Richmond’s chief lawyer concluded there were no problems if the product stayed internal. The Working Group found the office built the theory from three cases, including one involving a deceased person, and that research “uncovered nothing linking Catholics or groups not in full communion with the Catholic Church to domestic extremism.” Sources included Southern Poverty Law Center publications, The Atlantic, Salon, and foreign-intelligence material that internal reviews later said were used without adequate credibility assessment. The product proposed outreach to traditional parishes and listed churches as possible “tripwires.” Other field offices, including Portland, Los Angeles, and Milwaukee, contributed reporting. Then-Director Christopher Wray later called the document “appalling,” said it was limited to a single field office, and ordered it withdrawn; subsequent productions showed coordination beyond Richmond.

In parallel with drafting the memo, Richmond opened Guardian assessments on two priests related by family. Priest 1 served at Our Lady of Fatima Chapel, an SSPX-affiliated chapel attended by a convicted felon who had made violent threats online. Agents interviewed the priest by telephone in November 2022 about the parishioner; after he declined to violate the pastoral relationship, the office expanded scrutiny of the priest and the chapel. Priest 2, the first priest’s uncle, was associated with the SSPX-MC and had been ordained by Bishop Richard Williamson. Around January 9, 2023, agents pulled Priest 2’s flight and credit-card details after learning he would travel abroad. On January 20 they opened a separate Guardian on Priest 2 to determine whether he was involved in “recruitment and radicalization,” citing publicly available sermons they said showed rhetoric similar to the original subject’s views on antisemitism, anti-establishment themes, and abortion. On January 31 the Boston Field Office conducted “surveillance not requiring a court order” at Logan International Airport. Customs and Border Protection put Priest 2 and a companion through secondary inspection and searched Priest 2’s phone to assess contact with his nephew. Agents then watched them leave with a third person and followed the vehicle to a residence; later that evening they conducted surveillance at a residence associated with Priest 2. The Working Group found no criminal or violent-extremist link. Two days after the memo leaked, Richmond closed Priest 2’s Guardian on an executive-management directive. Priest 1’s file closed February 15 with the notation that no threat to national security and no federal violation had been identified.

After the leak, headquarters ordered the Domain Perspective deleted. The report states it remained available to FBI employees for 15 days and that a drafter continued “tinkering” more than a month after the removal order, emailing “a few areas where we could tinker further.” The Working Group said the bureau took “minimal corrective action,” defended the employees involved, and issued positive performance reviews. Personnel tied to the product were later removed from the FBI; those departures were previously reported in June. FBI Director Kash Patel tied the findings to the broader weaponization review. House Judiciary Republicans had documented in 2023 and 2025 that agents interviewed a priest and choir director while preparing the memo, used at least one undercover asset, and proposed source development among clergy, including at the Diocese of Richmond. The 2023 House interim report said that without the whistleblower the product would have remained in FBI systems. The new Justice Department report is the first full internal accounting released by the current administration of how far the priest inquiries and post-retraction work went.