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FBI Director Chris Wray consistently refuted such claims, and the agency has maintained that the document was promptly withdrawn and subjected to an internal review.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.

A charming boarding school in New Hampshire issued an apology to parents following the release of a yearbook containing students’ faces superimposed onto controversial images of ancient sculptures.

High Mowing School, located in Wilton, approximately 40 miles south of Concord, expressed regret in a letter to families, addressing the ‘inappropriate and tasteless’ nature of the images, as reported by WMUR.

The altered yearbook visuals featured students’ faces placed over potentially unsuitable images of both men and women, as well as statues.

According to the report, the school emphasized that this incident does not represent its core principles.

The institution plans to either remove the offending pages or reissue the yearbook with revised, appropriate imagery.

Online, commenters said it was ‘disturbing’ how the pictures were even printed in the first place.

‘Never thought to themselves, ‘huh these look a bit risqué for a high school year book, maybe I should check with the school?’? Hopefully it wasn’t too terrible for those who were photoshoppped [sic],’ one Facebook user wrote.

High Mowing is a private boarding school that serves students up through the 12th grade. High school tuition is $65,827 a year.

High Mowing School in Wilton apologized to parents after a yearbook was printed with students’ faces superimposed over inappropriate pictures of ancient statues, men and women

Head of school Katherine Meyer said High Mowing was ‘undertaking a full review of how these pages materialized and the approval of the processes that were in place at the time’

The New Hampshire school’s public calendar had said yearbooks would be distributed all day on Monday.

‘We are undertaking a full review of how these pages materialized and the approval of the processes that were in place at the time,’ Katherine Meyer, the head of school, told the outlet. 

Meyer added: ‘We will use what we learn to update our policies and procedures around content development, formatting and approvals to ensure we have the necessary and appropriate checks in place to prevent something like this from happening again.’

No further details were immediately revealed as to what that might entail. 

It was also not known what happened to the originally printed yearbooks with the supposedly inappropriately edited images.

Even though the images in question have not come to light, some community members reacted in dismay.

‘How does this happen at a school?’ a parent wrote on Facebook, saying he was ‘considering’ High Mowing.

The images in question have not been viewed by the Daily Mail.

The school said the students’ faces were edited onto inappropriate images of ancient statues (Photo of the statue of David by Michelangelo depicting an example of a Roman statue)

A High Mowing graduate from the early 1970s said it was ‘sad to hear this,’ though he admitted to not having any firsthand information himself. 

‘I don’t know the details of the photos, but the staff and students for the most part are very liberal,’ he wrote.

The New Hampshire institution is a Waldorf school, meaning that a focus is placed on experiential learning connected to the child’s ‘social and emotional well–being.’

Another user blasted the New Hampshire boarding institution for its curriculum choices, but none of the classes mentioned would have related to the yearbook.

‘The school has circus arts and clowning as elective majors,’ he said. ‘What do you expect[?]’

But others defended the students, even calling their actions ‘good.’

‘Kids that organize these pranks and sabotage the yearbook with tasteless humor and hidden jokes are a long standing and time honored tradition in our culture,’ one user wrote. ‘Way to stick it to the man!’

Another added: ‘This sounds like a lot of boomer pearl-clutching, but its [sic] difficult to make a final judgement without seeing the pics.’

The matter has not been commented on yet by the Wilton Police Department, WMUR reported.

In January, High Mowing was involved in a separate controversy after the Wilton Police Department announced that a student had been charged with manufacturing child sexual abuse images and disseminating private sexual photos.

This was noted by some parents in light of the supposedly inappropriate yearbook photos.

Davi Prudencio, 18, was accused of secretly recording sexual encounters with another student at High Mowing, according to WMUR.

The high school became aware of the allegations on May 9, police claimed.

Prudencio, a Brazilian national, allegedly flew back to his home country just three days later, driven to the airport by a High Mowing employee.

Law enforcement said High Mowing contacted police ‘after conducting their internal investigation and facilitating the suspect’s departure to Brazil.’

When police asked the school about the delay in their outreach, the head of school said, ‘Not to be rude, but you guys are fourth on our list of notification,’ per the affidavit seen by the outlet.

The Daily Mail has reached out to High Mowing School and Wilton police for comment.

Move over, Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn, there’s a new twist on the art of wedding crashing!

In a quirky new trend, people are now paying to attend weddings they weren’t invited to, courtesy of a novel website designed to help couples fill empty seats at their celebrations.

This innovative platform, named Not a Wedding Crasher, was introduced this month by a San Diego couple and has already made its mark by seating guests at weddings in Los Angeles, Phoenix, Washington, and San Antonio.

Hannah Emerson’s excitement was palpable when she stumbled upon this unique chance on TikTok.

“I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, absolutely!’ I’ve always wanted to crash a wedding, but you can’t really do that respectfully. This was the perfect solution,” she shared with The Post.

The 26-year-old background investigator paid $70 to attend a wedding in Seguin, TX, two hours from her San Antonio home.

Her husband drove her there, but refused to be her plus one.

“He thought it was the weirdest thing ever. So he sat in the car the whole time,” she said.

When Emerson arrived, she glanced at the “fancy seating chart,” assuming her name would not be listed.

“And it was!” she said, incredulously.

She spent four hours at the shindig — which included a taco buffet and an open bar — where she sat at a table with three other crashers.

“I’m waiting for someone to be like, ‘And who are you?’ But nobody asked,” said Emerson, whose video of the experience got over 5.5 million combined views.

She and her fellow crashers cringed when the DJ announced that the bride and groom were going to each table to take photos.

“We were like, ‘Oh no, does that include us?’ And then they called Table 5, which was just us four crashers,” she said.

The family of James “Weston” Higginbotham, a 20-year-old student from Auburn University who went missing during a vacation in Japan last May, has confirmed his death.

On Saturday morning, Higginbotham’s mother, Nancy, announced in a Facebook post that a volunteer search-and-rescue team found her son’s body in a mountainous region near Kyoto.

“Our family is heartbroken,” Nancy Higginbotham shared in her post, adding, “The grief we feel is impossible to put into words.”

Authorities last tracked James “Weston” Higginbotham to Yamashina Station, located east of Kyoto, during the family trip, according to his mother.

The Higginbotham family expressed their profound appreciation to those in the U.S., Japan, and worldwide who offered prayers and supported the search.

“The outpouring of kindness and support has carried us through the darkest days of our lives,” she said, pleading for privacy as the family begins to navigate the loss.

“We are forever grateful for the time we had with our sweet, precious Weston, but cannot begin to understand what life without him will be like,” his mother wrote. “… Thank you for your thoughts, prayers and support. We will need them now more than ever. We will always love you, Weston.”

The update comes after a massive, multinational search. 

The 20-year-old hiker was last seen May 29 near Yamashina Station, just east of Kyoto, after being separated from his parents following family “bickering,” News Media previously reported.

His parents were able to track him near a river and boarding a train via the Life360 app before his phone location suddenly went dark.

The family had previously held out hope that he would be found alive, telling News Media earlier in the week that he knew how to forage and was “built to endure.”

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James ‘Weston’ Higginbotham, an Alabama college student who went missing in Japan, has been discovered deceased, according to his devastated mother.

On Saturday morning, Nancy Higginbotham revealed that her 20-year-old son was found outside Kyoto following a thorough search and rescue operation.

“With heavy hearts, we share that Weston was located by a volunteer search-and-rescue group in a mountainous region near Kyoto. The depth of our sorrow is beyond expression,” his grieving mother wrote in a Facebook post.

“We cherish the moments we shared with our beloved Weston, yet we are at a loss to imagine our lives without him.”

The Higginbotham family expressed profound gratitude toward those in the US, Japan, and globally who helped spread Weston’s story, prayed for them, offered support, and participated in the search efforts.

‘The outpouring of kindness and support has carried us through the darkest days of our lives… Thank you for your thoughts, prayers, and support. We will need them now more than ever.

‘We will always love you, Weston.’

The circumstances surrounding his death remain unclear. 

James ‘Weston’ Higginbotham, 20, was last seen in Kyoto on May 29. His parents have since revealed on Saturday morning that the college student has been found dead

James (far right) traveled to the country with his family to celebrate his younger brother’s graduation

Higginbotham said their family is ‘deeply grateful’ for everyone across the US, Japan and ‘around the world’ who helped ‘share Weston’s story, prayed for our family, offered encouragement and helped in the search efforts’

The Auburn University student traveled to the country with family to celebrate his younger brother’s graduation, and was described as being ’emotionally distressed’ when he went missing.

He had last been seen on May 29 after his family had been ‘bickering,’ his mother previously revealed. 

‘We decided to separate. We had been, you know, kind of bickering with each other, and we decided, you go do your own thing, we do our thing,’ Nancy told Fox News. 

Nancy described ‘bickering’ as normal, with the family sharing twin beds in a hotel room for six days together. She said he ‘just needed time by himself,’ and that his ‘happy place is going on a trail or just going on a hike.’ 

After his disappearance, James’ family was able to track him down on Life360, an app that allows families to track locations, Nancy said. 

It showed that James, who also goes by Weston, was by a river, visited a few stores, and then boarded a local train before his location went ‘completely dark,’ she stated. 

He was last seen on surveillance footage getting off a train at the Yamashina Station Tuesday morning. 

On Wednesday, Nancy and her husband, Keith, shared a heartbreaking video on social media amid the search for their child. 

The couple thanked everyone who had offered support for their ‘thoughts and prayers,’ with Nancy adding, ‘We truly feel them.’ 

‘We do feel the love and the support that you guys have given us and that the community in Japan has given us as well.

‘Every time that you guys repost on social media, it’s an opportunity for somebody in Japan to see it,’ Nancy continued, explaining that their ‘ultimate goal is for people in Japan to see Weston’s face so they can report back to us.’