FBI analysts tied to disputed 'Catholic ideology' memo told they're being fired, AP sources say

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Several FBI analysts tied to the creation of a 2023 memo warning of a potential threat from Catholic “violent extremists” were fired Friday, according to their lawyer, the latest wave of terminations under the leadership of its director Kash Patel.

The fired employees included four intelligence analysts and a supervisory analyst. The FBI declined to comment.

“This action is manifestly unjust, completely unsupported by the facts, and subverts standard FBI policy and procedure,” their lawyer, David Laufman, said in a statement. “These individuals deserved far better for the exceptional and faithful public service they rendered to protect our country.”

The January 2023 intelligence product produced by analysts in the FBI's Richmond, Virginia, field office emerged as a political flashpoint after it was issued, with Republicans in Congress repeatedly citing it as part of their broader contention that the FBI during the Biden administration was targeting conservatives.

Then-director Chris Wray repeatedly denied that charge and the FBI has said the document was quickly retracted and an internal review was launched. Merrick Garland, the attorney general under President Joe Biden, has said he was “appalled” by the memo.

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.