The FBI has dismissed several analysts linked to a controversial memo from 2023 that flagged potential threats from extremist elements within the Catholic community. This development was confirmed by their attorney on Friday, marking another significant move under the agency’s current director, Kash Patel.
Among those terminated were four intelligence analysts and a supervisory analyst. The FBI has chosen not to provide any comments on the matter.
In a statement, attorney David Laufman criticized the decision, calling it “manifestly unjust” and claiming it lacked factual support while violating standard FBI protocols. He expressed that the individuals involved had provided exceptional and loyal service in safeguarding the nation.
The contentious memo, originating from analysts at the FBI’s Richmond, Virginia, office in January 2023, quickly became a heated topic in political circles. Republican lawmakers have frequently cited it as evidence in their ongoing accusations that the FBI, under President Biden’s administration, has been unfairly targeting conservative groups.
Former FBI Director Chris Wray consistently refuted such claims, and the agency has maintained that the document was promptly withdrawn and subjected to an internal review. U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland has publicly stated his dismay over the memo, expressing that he was “appalled” by its contents.
Earlier Justice Department investigations into the memo challenged the analytical tradecraft but did not find intentional misconduct by the analysts involved.
The firings are part of a broader personnel purge under Patel, a Trump loyalist who over the last year, has pushed out dozens of employees who either contributed to investigations of the president or who were perceived as not in alignment with the administration’s agenda. The Justice Department has engaged in similarly sweeping firings of prosecutors since Trump took office last year.
In February, for instance, the FBI fired a group of counterintelligence agents who participated in the investigation into President Donald Trump over his retention of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.
The Richmond memo, which emerged from a domestic terrorism investigation, sought to examine a potential link between what it called “Radical Traditionalist Catholic” ideology and racially and ethnically motivated extremists. It warned of the potential for violence and also highlighted what the authors described as “new avenues for tripwire and source development.” FBI leadership quickly condemned those findings once the document became public.
An internal FBI review described in a 2023 letter to Congress and based on interviews with 26 people “found that all individuals involved in the creation, review and approval of the product failed to adhere to analytic tradecraft standards and failed to recognize that the product, as drafted, equated the subjects’ interest in their self-described form of religion with racially or ethnically motivated violent extremist (RMVE) ideology without sufficient evidence or articulable support.”
The failure to adhere to standards, including on proper domestic terrorism terminology, “created the appearance that the FBI conducts investigative activity based on religious affiliation,” the letter said. “One of the FBI’s most fundamental principles is that investigative activity may not be based solely on the exercise of rights guaranteed by the First Amendment.”
A Justice Department inspector general report in 2024 summarized the earlier FBI review by saying that though there were departures from proper analytic tradecraft, “no evidence of a malicious intent or an improper purpose” were found.
MS NOW earlier reported the firings.
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Tucker reported from Los Angeles.