Tulsi Gabbard criticized Joe Biden’s FBI for targeting Latin Mass Catholics as ‘radical traditionalist extremists.’ Gabbard made the comments today during a Senate hearing on her nomination to become the director of national intelligence.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) -- Tulsi Gabbard ripped President Joe Biden's FBI for its targeting of "Traditional Latin Mass" Catholics.
Gabbard, President Donald Trump's nominee for director of national intelligence, said the FBI "abused its power" by labeling Catholics who prefer the Latin Mass as "radical traditionalist Catholics."
Gabbard’s comments were aimed at a leaked 2023 memo, approved by the Richmond FBI field office, that claimed some Catholics who attend the Latin Mass or question the Second Vatican Council might be extremists.
The Department of Justice later retracted the memo, but it had still been signed off on by the top attorney in that field office. The pretext for the memo appears to have been a single arrested individual with weapons and explosives who attended the Latin Mass.
The memo cited an Atlantic article comparing the Rosary to a weapon, along with the discredited Southern Poverty Law Center, as sources.
The memo was not contained to a single office; an official U.S. House report concluded that the Los Angeles, Portland, and Milwaukee offices contributed. Other field offices may have accessed the memo as well.
During her opening statement, the former Democratic congresswoman, who is now a Republican, also took aim at accusations she is compromised or is too favorable to authoritarian leaders like Vladimir Putin.
“You may hear lies and smears in this hearing that challenge my loyalty to and love for our country,” she said, according to Politico’s transcript.
She continued:
Those who oppose my nomination imply that I am loyal to something or someone other than God, my own conscience and the Constitution of the United States, accusing me of being Trump’s puppet, Putin’s puppet, Assad’s puppet, a guru’s puppet, Modi’s puppet — not recognizing the absurdity of simultaneously being the puppet of five different puppet masters.
Referencing the Iraq War, she also criticized “weaponized intelligence (that) has led to costly failures and the undermining of our national security,” as reported by Politico.
Gabbard is the latest Trump nominee to criticize the targeting of Catholics.
“Going after parents at a school board meeting has got to stop,” Attorney General nominee Pam Bondi said during her hearing.
“Sending informants into Catholic churches must stop,” Bondi, the former attorney general of Florida, told Sen. Mike Lee of Utah.
This story is developing and will be updated.
