Attorney General Merrick Garland engaged in a heated exchange with a congressman during a House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on the weaponization of the Department of Justice.
At the hearing on Wednesday, Rep. Jefferson Van Drew (R-NJ) confronted Garland over the leaked FBI memo that identified adherents of “radical-traditionalist Catholic ideology” as potential security threats that warrant surveillance and investigation.
“I hold you accountable for the anti-Catholic memo. Imagine sending agents undercover into Roman Catholic churches because they were supposedly domestic terrorists,” Van Drew told Garland.
After noting a litany of alleged abuses of power by the DOJ and FBI, Van Drew asked Garland, “Do you agree that traditional Catholics are violent extremists, yes or no?”
Garland insisted on giving a lengthier answer, but Van Drew pushed back, demanding a yes or no answer to the query. The attorney general responded by vociferously asserting his family’s Jewish heritage.
“The idea that someone with my family background would discriminate against any religion is so outrageous, so absurd …,” Garland said before Van Drew jumped back in. The men started speaking over each other.
“It was your FBI that did this. It was your FBI that was sending — and we have the memos, we have the emails — were sending undercover agents into Catholic churches,” Van Drew said.
Garland responded, “Both I and the director of the FBI have said that we were appalled by that memo.”
Van Drew shot off his question again about traditional Catholics, to which Garland answered, “Catholics are not extremists, no.”
The congressman then asked, “Was there anyone fired for drafting and circulating the anti-Catholic memo?”
“I don’t know the answer to that,” Garland replied.
The memo described “radical-traditionalist” Catholics as distinguished by their rejection of Vatican II reforms and “frequent adherence to anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ, and white supremacist ideology.”
FBI Director Christopher Wray previously claimed in sworn testimony that the memo was a “single product by a single field office” in Virginia.
However, House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) announced in August that newly uncovered documents had revealed that multiple FBI field offices around the country had a hand in developing the memo.
The Dallas Express reached out to the DOJ for comment but did not hear back by press time.
