The Trump administration has released a report on a Biden-era FBI Richmond office campaign against traditional Catholics, which used claims from a discredited KKK-funding group to mischaracterize religious beliefs as dangerous extremism.
House Speaker Mike Johnson’s Director of Coalitions Eric Schmitz highlighted a few screenshots showing how ridiculous the campaign was against traditional Catholic ways, and how warped the thinking is of FBI agents who believe biblically-based opposition to abortion and homosexuality, and “conservative family values,” are dangerous. The FBI actually smeared nerds who argue about Vatican II and the possibility of a future Catholic monarch as “comparable to the Islamist ideology.” Apparently being pro-life is morally the same as burning Jewish babies alive?
It’s UNREAL that these slides are from an actual FBI report.
— Eric Schmitz (@EricSchmitz1) August 29, 2026
Traditional Latin Mass. Conservative family values. Opposition to abortion. “Rejection of modernity.”
As a Catholic who attends the TLM, it’s disturbing to see ordinary Catholic beliefs and practices presented in this… https://t.co/TBqVF4bzrU pic.twitter.com/NxKrcbxNuw
The only point that could be considered potentially dangerous in the above slides is traditional Catholics’ antisemitism (as a traditional Catholic myself, I know that’s unfortunately a non-violent but recurring issue). But the entire Democrat Party is antisemitic, so why would the Biden-era FBI have a problem with it? It’s not as if any trad Catholics were assaulting Jews on the streets. Muslims and lefties do that.
Trad Catholics might have weird political views, but they don’t involve committing political violence. The FBI was comparing fantasies about the resurgence of French monarchy to mass murdering acts of jihad. It’s insane. But this is how leftists try to draw moral equivalence between merely expressed opinions and deadly terrorism. That way they can claim that there is as much extremism on the right as on the left, as much radicalism among Christians as among Muslims, which is patently false.
For Our VIPs: Why Would Hasan Piker Label Terrorism a ‘Perfectly Moral Action’?
The Justice Department press release drew out a few key points:
• Agents made extensive inquiries into two priests and monitored their travel and communications. The FBI ultimately found no link to criminal activity or violent extremism.
• The FBI relied on biased and unverified materials, including Southern Poverty Law Center publications and foreign intelligence materials, without assessing their credibility. Internal reviews later concluded that the product improperly conflated religious doctrine with violent extremism and ignored First Amendment concerns.
• The FBI’s leadership took minimal corrective action after the Richmond Domain Perspective. Despite headquarters acknowledging the Perspective’s flaws, employees involved received positive performance reviews, and Richmond leadership openly defended their work. Staff continued refining the Perspective even after it was removed from FBI systems.
The Justice Department this year brought charges against Southern Poverty Law Center for funding the KKK and other white supremacists. Yet it was the authority on whether or not pro-life Catholics were radical???
The question is, are all the people in the Richmond field office who were involved in this operation no longer employed there? Or were only a few of them fired? If any of them are still there, FBI Director Kash Patel should remove them. We cannot trust such individuals to display any objectivity or integrity in pursuing actual threats versus simply pursuing individuals with different religious or political views.
Editor's Note: President Trump is fighting to renew America this 250th birthday year.
Help us fight back against anti-American propaganda and government corruption. Join PJ Media VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member