(TheRedWire.com) – On Tuesday, Sen. Josh Hawley accused Attorney General Merrick Garland of giving false testimony to the Senate last month after he had claimed that his department did not have any undercover sources in Catholic churches or other religious centers and houses of worship. In his latest letter to Garland, Hawley pressed to find out how many undercover informants were currently working for the Department of Justice in religious sites.
Hawley, R-Mo., wrote in the letter to Garland that his department has turned “Catholic congregations into front organizations for the FBI,” and that he had proceeded to hide the truth from Congress. He added that this is an “unconscionable assault” on the rights of American Catholics as established by the First Amendment and that it marks “an abdication of your duty to enforce the law without fear or favor.”
This letter came after the House Judiciary’s Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government accused the FBI of employing “at least one undercover agent” who was spying on Catholic groups in Richmond, Virginia. This issue also came up last month during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. At the time Hawley had asked Garland whether there was an “anti-Catholic bias” in his department, but Garland claimed his department had no biases towards any religion or ideologies.
In the letter, Hawley pointed out the following exchange that he had with Garland during the hearing. When he asked Garland about sources and spies that his department used in Catholic churches across the country, he clearly responded that the Justice Department was not engaging in such activities and that they conducted no “‘investigations based on religion.’”
When asked about how many informants the department had across America in catholic churches, Garland once again stated he did not know that they had “‘any informants aimed at Catholic churches.’” However, according to the latest investigation by the House Judiciary Committee, both of these statements appear to be false.
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