CV NEWS FEED // A chorus of observers accused Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Christopher A. Wray of hypocrisy this week, after he defended the Bureau’s decision to “not monitor” the several pro-Palestine protests on college campuses.
During an NBC News interview Tuesday night, host Lester Holt asked Wray if the FBI is “actively monitoring these protests.”
“We don’t monitor protests,” the FBI director answered. “But we do share intelligence about specific threats of violence.”
Shortly after Wray’s comments were aired, a flurry of reactions from social media poured in.
Many users took to X (formerly Twitter) in particular to accuse the FBI of devoting its resources to target Catholics, other Christians, and opponents of the Biden administration, while giving a pass to legitimate threats from the pro-Hamas protestors and other groups friendly to the political left.
A conservative blogger who goes by the moniker “Bonchie” wrote, “They monitor school board meetings, churches, and Republican presidential campaigns, but protests supporting terrorism are a bridge too far for Wray.”
Conservative podcaster Graham Allen seemed to agree, pointing out that the FBI monitors Christians and Christian churches, supporters of former President Donald Trump, and parents who voice their concerns at school board meetings.
Furthermore, conservative radio host Jesse Kelly tied the FBI’s apparent refusal to monitor the college protests to the lack of prosecutions of pro-abortion activists who attack pro-life centers and organizations by the Department of Justice (DOJ). The FBI is an agency of the DOJ.
“The truth is the street animals are protected by the elite,” Kelly wrote. “The good people in the middle are attacked from top and bottom.”
Other users specifically referenced the FBI’s widely panned anti-Catholic “Richmond memo” exposed by whistleblower Kyle Seraphin last year.
“Too busy monitoring Catholics,” one user wrote.
“I guess they are too busy monitoring Catholic churches,” another pointed out.
Last summer, CatholicVote reported that Wray “may have lied under oath” about the scope of the FBI’s memo.
A House Judiciary Committee uncovered evidence showing that “the contents of the memo did not originate solely with the Richmond, VA field office, but were part of an effort that spanned the FBI offices of Portland and Los Angeles.”
CatholicVote described that the evidence “contradicted Wray’s [July 2023] under-oath testimony” where he “claimed that the memo was ‘a single product by a single field office,’ and as soon as he heard of it, he ‘was aghast and ordered it withdrawn and removed from FBI systems.’”
>> ANTI-CATHOLIC MEMO NOT JUST FROM ONE FIELD OFFICE <<
An excerpt from a chapter written by Seraphin in CatholicVote’s upcoming book, For God, Country, & Sanity: How Catholics Can Save America, was published in an article in The Federalist last week.
“Of all the groups our top federal law enforcement agency would write an 11-page document targeting, they picked us,” Seraphin, a Catholic, wrote.
“With all of the crime going on in the country, especially in the last few years, the FBI decided we Catholics were the problem,” he added.
The 2023 CatholicVote Hero of the Year also warned that “[t]he FBI is establishing a gateway in what they think is ‘fringe Catholicism,’ as a means to go after Christians in general and declare them to be the real ‘threats’ and ‘potential terrorists’ in the country.”
“Slowly but surely, the FBI is probing its way into all religious communities,” Seraphin explained.
“All Christians are in the crosshairs … the idea of them targeting a so-called ‘radical Baptist’ or ‘radical Lutheran’ in the near future is certainly on the table.”
Readers can find Seraphin’s entire Federalist article here.
Readers can pre-order For God, Country, & Sanity here.
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