The Untouchables: The Sexual Predators Within America’s Power Elite

by John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead / July 23rd, 2025

“Now by coming in and being part of the cover-up, the Trump administration has become part of it.”—Alex Jones, InfoWars

Once again, the American police state is choosing to protect predators, not victims.

Jeffrey Epstein—the hedge fund billionaire/convicted serial pedophile and sex trafficker—may be dead, but the machinery that empowered and protected him is still very much alive.

You see, the Epstein case was never just about Epstein—it was about the entire edifice of power that shields the ruling class, silences victims, and erases accountability.

Thus, the latest about-face declarations from the Trump administration—that Epstein had no client list, that he did, in fact, kill himself, and that there’s nothing more to discuss or investigate so we should just move on—have only reinforced what many have suspected all along: the system is rigged in order to protect the power elite because the power elite are the system.

In this age of partisan politics and a deeply polarized populace, corruption—especially when it involves sexual debauchery, depravity, and predatory behavior—has become the great equalizer.

With the reemergence of Jeffrey Epstein’s ghost in the public discourse, we are once again reminded of just how deep the rot goes.

Politics, religion, entertainment, business, law enforcement, the military—it doesn’t matter the arena or affiliation: all are riddled with the kind of seedy, depraved behavior that gets a free pass when it involves the powerful.

For years, the Epstein case has stood as a grotesque emblem of the depravity within America’s power elite: billionaires, politicians, and celebrities who allegedly trafficked in sex with young girls while insulated from accountability.

It is believed that Epstein, who died in jail after being arrested on charges of molesting, raping, and sex trafficking dozens of young girls, operated a sex trafficking ring not only for his own personal pleasure but also for that of his friends and business associates.

According to The Washington Post, “several of the young women…say they were offered to the rich and famous as sex partners at Epstein’s parties.”

Despite the government’s insistence that there’s nothing more to see, here’s what the public record already reveals:

• Epstein ferried his friends about on his private plane, nicknamed the “Lolita Express” after the Nabokov novel, due to the presence of what appeared to be underage girls on board.
• Both Bill Clinton and Donald Trump were counted among Epstein’s friends.
• Both Clinton and Trump were at one time passengers on the Lolita Express.
• Both Clinton and Trump are renowned womanizers who have been accused of sexual impropriety by a significant number of women over the years. In fact, The Rutherford Institute represented Paula Jones in her landmark sexual harassment lawsuit against then-President Clinton—a case that helped expose how far the political establishment will go to shield its own.

So you have to wonder… when President Trump, who has used his administration’s war on human trafficking to justify expanding the government’s police state powers, quietly dismantles the very government agencies tasked with investigating and exposing sex trafficking… what exactly is going on?

The message from the top is clear: there will be no accountability.

This isn’t justice. It’s a double standard—one set of rules for the untouchables, and another for everyone else.

If it looks like a cover-up, smells like a cover-up, and appears to benefit all the usual suspects, is it so far-fetched to suspect that the government is once again closing ranks to protect the members of its power elite?

We’ve seen it before: from the CIA’s MK-Ultra experiments and the FBI’s COINTELPRO operations to CIA black sites and NSA mass surveillance.

Each time, secrecy protected the powerful and betrayed the people.

And it will keep happening—again and again—unless we confront the truth hiding in plain sight: that abuse of power is not an aberration of the system—it is the system.

Nowhere is that more apparent than in the shadow economy of sex trafficking, where power, profit, and predation converge.

This is America’s seedy underbelly.

Child sex trafficking—the buying and selling of women, young girls, and boys for sex, some as young as 9 years old—has become big business in America. It is the fastest growing business in organized crime and the second most-lucrative commodity traded illegally after drugs and guns.

This is the darkness at the heart of the American police state: a system built to shield the powerful from justice.

While Epstein’s alleged crimes are heinous enough on their own, he is part of a larger narrative of how a culture of entitlement becomes a cesspool and a breeding ground for despots and predators.

Give any one person—or government agency—too much power and allow them to believe that they are entitled, untouchable, and will not be held accountable for their actions, and those powers will be abused.

We see this dynamic play out every day in communities across the United States.

A cop shoots an unarmed citizen for no credible reason and gets away with it. A president employs executive orders to sidestep the Constitution and gets away with it. A government agency spies on its citizens’ communications and gets away with it. An entertainment mogul sexually harasses aspiring actresses and gets away with it. The U.S. military bombs a civilian hospital and gets away with it.

It’s no coincidence that the same administration dismantling offices tasked with fighting human trafficking is also defunding the few agencies left to hold law enforcement accountable.

This is how the system works, protecting the untouchables—not because they’re innocent, but because the system has made them immune.

Abuse of power—and the ambition-fueled hypocrisy and deliberate disregard for misconduct that make those abuses possible—works the same whether you’re talking about sex crimes, government corruption, or the rule of law.

Unless something changes in the way we deal with these ongoing, egregious abuses of power, the predators of the police state will continue to wreak havoc on our freedoms, our communities, and our lives.

For too long now, Americans have tolerated an oligarchy in which a powerful, elite group of wealthy donors is calling the shots.

We need to restore the rule of law for all people, no exceptions.

The rule of law means no one gets a free pass—no matter their wealth, status, or political connections.

As I make clear in my book, Battlefield America: The War on the American People, and in its fictional counterpart, The Erik Blair Diaries, the empowerment of petty tyrants and political gods must come to an end.FacebookTwitter

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John W. Whitehead, constitutional attorney and author, is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. He wrote the book Battlefield America: The War on the American People (SelectBooks, 2015). He can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org. Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Read other articles by John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead.

 

From Personal Development to Human Development

by David Andersson / July 23rd, 2025

At the third assembly of the World Humanist Forum on July 19, Antonio Carvallo proposed the creation of a new working table on the theme of Personal Development. During his presentation, a spark caught my attention. He remarked that, for over 5,000 years, humanity has devoted nearly all its energy to understanding and developing the external world, while neglecting its own internal development as human beings.

Here we are today, with astonishing technological, scientific, intellectual, and social capacities. We can split atoms, map genomes, and communicate instantly across the planet. Yet, in comparison, our understanding of how we function internally as human beings remains painfully limited. Human beings are still too often treated as tools, valued mainly for their capacity to produce and consume.

Ask a teenager what they plan to do with their life, and the question is typically understood to mean: What job will you have? Life becomes synonymous with work. You study in order to work, you work most of your life, and eventually retire—often exhausted and disillusioned. Fulfillment is closely tied to career success, even in a dysfunctional society or a toxic workplace.
Meanwhile, mental health statistics in Western society point to a deep and growing crisis:

• • In 2022, around 59.3 million U.S. adults (≈23.1%) experienced some form of mental illness.
  • In 2022, 15.4 million adults (6%) experienced serious mental illness.
  • In 2022, the CDC reported 49,449 suicide deaths in the United States—about a 3% increase from 48,183 in 2021, marking a record high.

Is this not a dramatic expression of unresolved internal conflict?

Why has internal development been so undervalued? It almost seems like there’s a global conspiracy against it. Most religions begin with an internal experience, but over time, they become increasingly outward-facing — placing God in the sky, focusing on external rituals, and obsessing over food or rules. Political ideologies like Marxism often fail to explore the role of violence, fear, and meaning in how we organize ourselves. Even in the modern “self-help” industry, personal growth is often framed as a way to “optimize performance” within the same dehumanizing structures that cause suffering.

Ask someone, “How do you deal with fear?” Most will struggle to answer. People have no internal tools or language to face and transform their fear. Fear becomes a tool used by the system to control everyday life: we fear being fired, not having enough money, not being loved, being “too much” or “not enough.”

Why are so many people exhausted? What do we actually know about our internal energy — how to cultivate it, renew it, and direct it? These are fundamental questions central to our survival and evolution, and yet society rarely addresses them.

Let’s be clear: we are not proposing personal development so that people can function better in this dehumanized system. True personal development is about changing the focus of our lives entirely. Nothing meaningful can be transformed in the world until we internalize our knowledge of what it means to be human, recognize that life has meaning beyond labor and consumption, and free ourselves from the illusion of fear.

Peace is not the absence of war. It is an internal state of being.

Imagine what it would mean for 8 billion people to embark on a path of self-understanding, learning to overcome pain and suffering, seeing money not as an end in itself but as a tool to humanize the Earth. Imagine if self-knowledge were approached with the same discipline, care, and passion as a musician practices an instrument.

Education must evolve. It must be rooted in the development of the whole human being. Reconciling with oneself should be the first step. The world we long for must first take root within ourselves—only then can we co-create it with othersFacebook

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David Andersson is a French-American journalist, photographer, and author who has lived in New York for over 30 years. He co-directs Pressenza International Press Agency and is the author of The White-West: A Look in the Mirror, a collection of op-eds examining the dynamics of Western identity and its impact on other cultures. Read other articles by David.

 

Trump’s Latin American Policies Go South

by John Perry and Roger D. Harris / July 23rd, 2025

With the Trump imperium passing the half-year mark, the posture of the US empire is ever clearer. Whether animated by “America First” or globalism, the objective remains “full spectrum dominance.” And now with the neocon capture of the Democrats, there are no guardrails from the so-called opposition party.

Call it the “new cold war,” the “beginning of World War III,” or – in Trump’s words – “endless war,” this is the era that the world has entered. The US/Zionist war against Iran has paused, but no one has any illusions that it is over. And it won’t likely be resolved until one side decisively and totally prevails. Ditto for the proxy war with Russia in Ukraine. Likely the same with Palestine, where the barbarity of war worsened to genocide. Meanwhile, since Obama’s “pivot to Asia,” the empire is building up for war with China.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, the empire’s war on the world assumes a hybrid form. The carnage is less apparent because the weapons take the form of “soft power” – sanctions, tariffs, and deportations. These can have the same lethal consequences as bombs, only less overt.

Making the world unsafe for socialism

Some Western leftists vilify the defensive measures that Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua must take to protect themselves from the empire’s regime-change schemes. In contrast, Washington clearly understands that these countries pose “threats of a good example” to the empire. Each subsequent US president, from Obama on, has certified them as “extraordinary threats to US national security.” Accordingly, they are targeted with the harshest coercive measures.

In this war of attrition, historian Isaac Saney uses the example of Cuba to show how any misstep by the revolutionary government or societal deficiency is exaggerated and weaponized. The empire’s siege, he explains, is not merely an attempt to destabilize the economy but is a deliberate strategy of suffocation. The empire aims to instigate internal discontent, distort people’s perception of the government, and ultimately erode social gains.

While Cuba is affected the worst by the hybrid war, both Venezuela and Nicaragua have also been damaged. All three countries have seen the “humanitarian parole” for their migrants in the US come to an end. Temporary Protected Status (TPS) was also withdrawn for Venezuelans and Nicaraguans. The strain of returning migrants, along with cuts in the remittances they had sent (amounting to a quarter of Nicaragua’s GDP), further impacts their respective economies.

Higher-than-average tariffs are threatened on Venezuelan and Nicaraguan exports to the US, together with severe restrictions on Caracas’s oil exports. Meanwhile, the screws have been tightened on the six-decade US blockade of Cuba with disastrous humanitarian consequences.

However, all three countries are fighting back. They are forming new trade alliances with China and elsewhere. Providing relief to Cuba, Mexico has supplied oil, and China is installing solar panel farms to address the now-daily power outages. High levels of food security in Venezuela and Nicaragua have strengthened their ability to resist US sanctions, while Caracas successfully defeated one of Washington’s harshest migration measures by securing the release of 252 of its citizens who had been incarcerated in El Salvador’s torturous CECOT prison.

Venezuela’s US-backed far-right opposition is in disarray. The first Trump administration had recognized the “interim presidency” of Juan Guaidó, followed by the Biden administration declaring Edmundo González the winner of Venezuela’s last presidential election. But the current Trump administration has yet to back González, de facto recognizing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Nicaragua’s right-wing opposition is also reeling from a side-effect of Trump’s harsh treatment of migrants – many are returning voluntarily to a country claimed by the opposition to be “unsafe,” while US Homeland Security has even extolled their home country’s recent achievements. And some of Trump’s prominent Cuban-American supporters are now questioning his “maximum pressure” campaign for going too far.

Troubled waters for the Pink Tide

The current progressive wave, the so-called Pink Tide, was initiated by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s landslide victory in 2018. His MORENA Party successor, Claudia Sheinbaum, won by an even greater margin in 2024. Mexico’s first woman president has proven to be perhaps the world’s most dignified and capable sparring partner with the buffoon in the White House, who has threatened tariffs, deportations, military interdictions, and more on his southern neighbor.

Left-leaning presidents Gabriel Boric in Chile and Gustavo Petro in Colombia are limited to a single term. Both have faced opposition-aligned legislatures and deep-rooted reactionary power blocs. Chilean Communist Party candidate Jeanette Jara is favored to advance to the second-round presidential election in November 2025, but will face a challenging final round if the right unifies, as is likely, around an extremist candidate.

As the first non-rightist in Colombia’s history, Petro has had a tumultuous presidential tenure. He credibly accuses his former foreign minister of colluding with the US to overthrow him. However, the presidency could well revert to the right in the May 2026 elections.

Boric, Petro, Uruguay’s Yamandú Orsi, and Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva met in July as the region’s center-left presidents, with an agenda of dealing with Trump, promoting multilateralism, and (we can assume) keeping their distance from the region’s more left-wing governments.

With shaky popularity ratings, Lula will likely run for reelection in October 2026. As head of the region’s largest economy, Lula plays a world leadership role, chairing three global summits in a year. Yet, with less than a majority legislative backing, Lula has triangulated between Washington and the Global South, often capitulating to US interests (as in his veto of BRICS membership for Nicaragua and Venezuela). Regardless, Trump is threatening Brazil with a crippling 50% export tariff and is blatantly interfering in the trial of former right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro, accused of insurrection. So far, Trump’s actions have backfired, arousing anger among Brazilians. Lula commented that Trump was “not elected to be emperor of the world.”

In 2021, Honduran President Xiomara Castro took over a narcostate subservient to Washington and has tried to push the envelope to the left. Being constitutionally restricted to one term, Castro hands the Libre party candidacy in November’s election to former defense minister Rixi Moncada, who faces a tough contest with persistent US interference.

Bolivia’s ruling Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) Party is embroiled in a self-destructive internal conflict between former President Evo Morales and his former protégé and current President, Luis Arce. The energized Bolivian right wing is spoiling for the August 17^th presidential election.

Israeli infiltration accompanies US military penetration

Analyst Joe Emersberger notes: “Today, all geopolitics relates back to Gaza where the imperial order has been unmasked like never before.” Defying Washington, the Hague Group met in Colombia for an emergency summit on Gaza to “take collective action grounded in international law.” On July 16, regional states – Bolivia, Cuba, Colombia, Nicaragua, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines – endorsed the pledge to take measures in support of Palestine, with others likely to follow. Brazil will join South Africa’s ICJ complaint against Israel.

At the other end of the political spectrum are self-described “world’s coolest dictator” Nayib Bukele of El Salvador and confederates Javier Milei of Argentina and Daniel Noboa of Ecuador. As well as cozying up to Trump, they devotedly support Israel, which has been instrumental in enabling the most brutal reactionaries in the region. Noboa duly tells Israel’s Netanyahu that they “share the same enemies.”

In February, the US Southern Command warned: “Time is not on our side.” The perceived danger is “methodical incursion” into our “neighborhood” by both Russia and China. Indeed, China has become the region’s second-largest trading partner after the US, and even right-wing governments are reluctant to jeopardize their relations with Beijing. The empire’s solution is to “redouble our efforts to nest military engagement,” using humanitarian assistance as “an essential soft power tool.”

Picking up where Biden left off, Trump has furthered US military penetration, notably in Ecuador, Guyana, Brazil, Panama, and Argentina. The pandemic of narcotics trafficking, itself a product of US-induced demand, has been a Trojan Horse for militarist US intervention in Haiti, Ecuador, Peru, and threatened in Mexico.

In Panama, President José Mulino’s obeisance to Trump’s ambitions to control the Panama Canal and reduce China’s influence provoked massive protests. Trump’s collaboration in the genocide of Palestinians motivated Petro to declare that Colombia must leave the NATO alliance and keep its distance from “militaries that drop bombs on children.” Colombia had been collaborating with NATO since 2013 and became the only Latin American global partner in 2017.

Despite Trump’s bluster – what the Financial Times calls “imperial incontinence” – his administration has produced mixed results. While rightist political movements have basked in Trump’s fitful praise, his escalating coercion provokes resentment against Yankee influence. Resistance is growing, with new alliances bypassing Washington. As the empire’s grip tightens, so too does the resolve of those determined to break free from it.

 

Silicon Valley Sociocide

by Charles Derber / July 23rd, 2025

The rise of modern capitalism created and reflected the industrial technological revolution. The technology of the steam engine, coal, oil, and gas energy grids, and machinery, the railroads, automotive technology, and the telegram and telephone were all essential technological changes enabling the creation of the factory and industrial mass production. The new industrial technology shaped the nature of productive relations in the machine age, making possible both industrial production itself in the factory and the distribution of supplies and goods that sustained productive and market relations. Vast concentrations of capital and corporate power crystallized in the Robber Baron era of the late 19th century. This was an era of sociopathic accumulation that dehumanized and exploited workers, while creating gaping inequality. The labor unions that arose in its wake created a powerful corrective that also nurtured class solidarity and a sense of the common good.

The shift to post-industrialism was associated with the rise of a powerful new set of capitalist elites and new corporate centers of production, finance, and communication. In the 21st century, Silicon Valley became the symbol of the new post-industrial high-tech world. It would become the showcase of the new high-tech companies, such as Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple, which were becoming the first trillion-dollar companies, led by tycoons such as Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs, Tim Cook, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and Peter Thiel, all fabulously wealthy members of the Big Tech power elite. Silicon Valley introduced itself as a modern miracle, bringing unprecedented new productivity and prosperity that would benefit both owners and workers, and contribute to the betterment of the general population with magical new products such as the personal computer, the iPhone, and the new internet-based world of online culture and communication on social media. This new world revolutionized the economic and social spheres, while also having major uses and implications for politics and the military. Because billions of people globally now have iPhones or personal computers, with access to the new online universe of the internet and social media, Silicon Valley seemed to open up not only a transformative new economy for entrepreneurs and knowledge workers but a transformed, newly connected world of online social communication and relationships.

This is not entirely an illusion. The online world does open up new social connections and political connections, with social media being a powerful new tool for the younger generation to build new friendships, communities, and politics. But Silicon Valley’s fantastic new array of electronic communications and online connections may also prove to be a gateway to weak social relations and ultimately the end of strong face-to-face social relationships, as well as democracy itself. We face a sociocidal transformation fueled by high tech, with Silicon Valley also proffering its own politics of authoritarianism. Sociocide is the process by which human connection is largely severed, and individuals are only concerned for themselves. A sociocidal society is one in which solidarity is nonexistent and meaningful human relationships are destroyed.

Several sociocidal forces emerge directly from the economic restructuring created by huge Big Tech firms, especially the “Magnificent Seven,” whose individual worth now reaches into the trillions:  Microsoft, Apple, NVIDIA, Amazon, Alphabet (Google), Meta (Facebook), and Tesla. One is the interest of these corporate high-tech elites, much like their corporate counterparts in other spheres, in eroding the face-to-face workplace and social ties that can challenge their power. In the workplace, that translates into the intensified attack on secure employment, unionism, and a collective physical workplace. The intent is to weaken the social relations of workers in the workplace – and more broadly, to subvert the solidarity and face-to-face connections of people throughout society that can challenge authoritarianism in both work and politics.

Focusing first on the workplace, the Magnificent Seven play a special role here by creating and developing the technology – including the personal computer, iPhone, internet apps, AI, robots, and social media — that allows corporate elites to create a precariat of dispersed and contingent workers, increasingly separated from each other, while also replacing millions of workers and transferring their jobs to robots and other AI inventions.

The most rapid replacement of workers by robots and AI is in high-skill jobs. Matt Sigelman, president of the Human Resources Institute, summarized his Institute’s widely circulated report on AI, saying, “There’s no question the workers who will be most impacted are those with college degrees, and those are the people who always thought they were safe.” He indicates that: “Companies in finance, including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley, have some of the highest percentages of their payrolls likely to be disrupted by generative A.I. Not far behind are tech giants like Google, Microsoft and Meta.”

Tech workers, talented and highly trained, are developing the tools allowing their companies to eliminate many of their own jobs. Meanwhile, employers are also using robots to replace low-skill workers. The sociocidal tech impulse of Silicon Valley, as in other sectors, is embraced because of its profit-saving capacity. And the fastest way to increase profit is to reduce wages, usually by weakening relations among employees or busting unions.

The Magnificent Seven have used their overwhelming economic power to directly undermine unions, the most effective form of worker social relations and organization. In January 2024, Elon Musk, now legendary for his anti-union and broader right-wing views, filed a lawsuit in federal courts to declare unconstitutional the National Labor Relations Board, which protects and regulates workers’ right to organize. In August 2024, just before his re-election, Trump joked with Musk about firing workers, complimenting Musk during a two-hour conversation on X for firing Tesla workers who wanted to strike. “They go on strike,” Trump said to Musk, “and you say, ‘That’s OK, you’re all gone.’” Trump then added, “You’re the Greatest!” The UAW filed labor charges against both Trump and Musk for the unfair labor practices that the two had celebrated; Musk’s Tesla had clashed with union activists for years, and the NLRB in 2021 had found that the non-union Tesla violated labor laws when it fired a union organizer.

One of Musk’s Magnificent Seven compatriots, Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, quickly joined in Trump and Musk’s union-busting party, filing a copycat suit to make the NLRB and unions unconstitutional. Here, we see the world’s two richest men, leaders of the High-Tech Robber Barons, exploiting economic size to reap the fruit of their technology’s economic power. They are seeking a revolutionary breakdown of workplace social relations, moving from the sociopathy of the first Gilded Age to the sociocide of today’s Gilded Age.

The Magnificent Seven’s power undercuts workplace social relations and fiercely attacks union solidarity in the name of free-spirited libertarianism running rampant in Silicon Valley. The broader corporate success in drastically weakening unions is key to sociocide in the entire US labor force and has been achieved not only by the anti-union fervor of corporations since the New Deal but also by the zeal of the Republican Party from Reagan through Trump to make the destruction of labor solidarity and unions a top political priority.

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The above is an excerpt from Charles Derber’s most recent book, Bonfire: American Sociocide, Broken Relations, and the Quest for Democracy.FacebookTwitter

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Charles Derber, Professor of Sociology at Boston College, is the author, most recently, of Bonfire: American Sociocide, Broken Relations, and the Quest for Democracy. He has written 29 books on politics, democracy, fascism, corporations, capitalism, climate change, war, the culture wars, and social change. His bestselling books include The Pursuit of Attention and The Wilding of America. He writes for and has been reviewed in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, Truthout, and other leading media. His books have been translated into 14 languages. Derber is a public intellectual – shortlisted in 2006 by the American Independent Booksellers Association for Hidden Power, the best book in current affairs – who believes that serious ideas should be written in an accessible style. His most recent books include Who Owns Democracy, Dying for Capitalism, Welcome to the Revolution, Moving Beyond Fear, Sociopathic Society, and Capitalism: Should You Buy It? Read other articles by Charles.

 

Judiciary Committee: FBI Spied On Catholic Priest For Not Divulging Info On Parishioner

 July 23, 2025

By CNA

By Tyler Arnold

The Richmond office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) spied on a priest because he refused to discuss private conversations he had with a parishioner who was converting to Catholicism, according to a July 22 report from the House Judiciary Committee.

According to the report, the Richmond FBI investigated the priest’s background, monitored his travel plans, and looked into his credit card information. This investigation was allegedly launched after the priest became uncomfortable with an FBI agent’s questions about a parishioner and said he would need to speak to the church’s leadership and an attorney before answering questions.

“There appeared to be no legitimate law-enforcement purpose for investigating this priest,” the report determined. “This new information suggests that the FBI’s religious liberty abuses were more widespread than the FBI initially admitted and led the public to believe.”

The report, provided to CNA by Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan’s office, offers more details about theextent to which the FBI investigated so-called “radical traditionalist” Catholics. 

The FBI’s investigation into supposed “radical traditionalist” Catholic ties to “the far-right white national movement” was first revealed to the public through a leaked Richmond FBI memo in February 2023.

Although the FBI under former President Joe Biden quickly disavowed the document when it came to light and asserted it was a single product of a single field agency, information unveiled by the Judiciary Committee shows the investigatory efforts into Catholics was more widespread and that the national FBI headquarters was involved.

In the report, the committee states that the Richmond FBI was working with the national FBI headquarters to develop an agency-wide document on “radical traditionalist” Catholics, which was ultimately shelved. The headquarters and other field offices also coordinated with the Richmond FBI investigation of the previously mentioned priest.

The 2023 memo cited the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) for the definition of “radical traditionalist” Catholicism, but the new committee report says the field office relied on “several radical anti-religious materials” from organizations that “spewed radical, left-leaning ideology” to inform the agency apart from just the SPLC.

CNA reached out to the FBI for comment but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

Spying on a Catholic priest

Emails uncovered by the committee show that the Richmond FBI allegedly coordinated with the national FBI’s Counterterrorism Division, the Louisville FBI field office, and the international London FBI field office in its investigation of the Richmond-area priest who belongs to the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX).

SSPX is a traditionalist Catholic priestly fraternity that holds an irregular canonical status with the Catholic Church. Its bishops were excommunicated in 1988, though that order was lifted in 2009. The Vatican has worked with SSPX with the intent of eventually reestablishing full communion.

The committee report showed that a Richmond FBI employee interviewed the priest about a parishioner who had recently been arrested.

When the FBI employee asked the priest whether the parishioner had spoken about “desires and plans to commit violence,” the priest “became very uncomfortable and started incoherently stuttering,” according to an email that the employee sent to the counterterrorism unit.

The email stated that the priest “requested to speak with the church’s leadership and attorneys” before continuing. It said the priest then “refused to speak with us any further but has continued to speak with [the parishioner] while in prison, and even attempted to visit him.”

The FBI employee incorrectly asserted in the email that the priest’s communications with the parishioner were “not considered privileged” because he “has not completed his catechism or been baptized in the Church.” Virginia law protects priest-penitent privilege for any confidential communication with a member of clergy related to “spiritual counsel and advice.” 

“The priest-penitent privilege rightly protects communications between a clergy member and an individual seeking spiritual guidance,” the report notes. “It is not dependent on the individual achieving certain milestones in his or her spiritual life.”

In response to the priest’s refusal to disclose confidential information, the Richmond FBI opened a “formal investigative assessment” of the priest. This included an examination of the priest’s ordination history and coordination with the FBI’s London office to monitor the priest’s trip to the United Kingdom. 

In emailed communications, FBI employees discussed the priest’s location, travel plans, and credit card information. The Richmond FBI employee also sought information from other agents about the SSPX more broadly, including the priestly fraternity’s recruitment efforts.

“This new information demonstrates that the FBI not only used its federal law enforcement resources to surveil certain Catholic Americans, but it also used these resources to investigate a clergy member,” the report states.

Richmond FBI briefings on ‘radical traditional Catholics’

The new committee report also details Richmond FBI briefings on traditionalist Catholics and the questionable sources from which they drew their concerns. 

An official Richmond FBI presentation document titled “Traditionalist Catholicism Overview” discussed the “core ideology and beliefs” of traditionalist Catholics and what they view as being “radical-traditionalist Catholicism,” which they abbreviate as RTC. 

Some “core concepts” of traditionalist Catholicism, according to the Richmond FBI presentation, include the Traditional Latin Mass, “conservative family values/roles,” a “rejection of modernity,” and a “tendency toward isolationism.”

The Richmond FBI categorized “radical-traditionalist Catholicism” beliefs to include “belief that mainline Catholicism is illegitimate” and “hardline positions on abortion, LGBTQ matters, and interreligious dialogue.”

It also allegedly includes “apocalyptic overtones,” “rigid fundamentalism [and] integralism,” and an “undertone of antisemitism.”

Some of the sources that FBI analysts cited regarding their concerns include an article in the Atlantic titled “How Extremist Gun Culture Is Trying to Co-opt the Rosary” and another article in Sojourners Magazine titled “The Catholic Church Has a Visible White-Power Faction.” 

The report noted that some of the sources disparage Catholics and the pro-life movement. In the Atlantic article, the author states “the convergence within Christian nationalism is cemented in common causes such as hostility toward abortion-rights advocates.” 

“The FBI analysts who developed the Richmond memorandum relied on literature with an inherent prejudice against people of faith and those with widely-held, deeply personal views of the sanctity of life,” the report notes.

Richmond FBI employees also worked with the FBI national headquarters to develop a “Strategic Perspective Executive Analytic Report” for external use. It notes that the Richmond FBI interacted with the national office about the possibility as early as December 2022, just a month after the Richmond office began to produce the now-retracted memo. Ultimately, this effort was abandoned after the Richmond memo became public. 

The report stated that current FBI Director Kash Patel, who was nominated by President Donald Trump, provided the committee with the documents. It accused the Biden administration and former FBI Director Christopher Wray of withholding information from the public and misleading Congress about the extent of the investigation into Catholics. 

“Under the Biden-Harris administration, the FBI disrespected and potentially violated the constitutionally protected religious liberties of faithful Americans,” the report states. 

“Throughout the committee’s oversight in the 118th Congress, the Biden-Harris administration refused to provide relevant information to the committee,” it adds.

Jordan in a statement to CNA said lawmakers “knew the Biden-Wray FBI was targeting Catholics, but new documents obtained by the committee — thanks to the leadership of FBI Director Patel — shows that it was worse than anyone thought.” 

“Contrary to Director Wray’s statements, the targeting of Catholics went beyond the Richmond Field Office and extended not to just offices across the country but around the world,” Jordan said.

CNA

The Catholic News Agency (CNA) has been, since 2004, one of the fastest growing Catholic news providers to the English speaking world. The Catholic News Agency takes much of its mission from its sister agency, ACI Prensa, which was founded in Lima, Peru, in 1980 by Fr. Adalbert Marie Mohm (†1986).