RFK Jr., nephew of first Catholic president, calls out FBI over memo targeting 'radical' parishioners
John F. Kennedy and Joe Biden are the only two Roman Catholic presidents to-date
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., pledged that if elected he would question FBI Director Christopher Wray over allegations surrounding a memo and investigation originating in the Richmond, Va., field office into some American Catholics as potential "violent extremists."
Wray has, however, testified multiple times that the memo, titled "Interest of Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists in Radical-Traditionalist Catholic Ideology Almost Certainly Presents New Mitigation Opportunities," was rescinded as soon as his office became aware of it.
Kennedy was asked about the alleged targeting on "Jesse Watters Primetime," following a FOX News Digital report revealing the bureau interviewed a priest and a choir director as part of the probe, while also finding documentation laying out "no legitimate basis" for the insertion of the feds into Catholic parishes.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"I would certainly question [Wray] about these issues," Kennedy said.
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"And I think you are right to point out the different application of ethics on a political line," he told host Jesse Watters.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Kennedy's uncle, President John F. Kennedy, was America's first Catholic president. The only other president to identify as Catholic is President Joe Biden, who often attends St. Joseph on the Brandywine parish in Greenville, Del., when visiting his home.
Kennedy said his father, the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, took seriously his role as attorney general under JFK, recounting how he called a meeting with all DOJ branch-division leaders to prohibit any politicization within the department and the FBI.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"[He] said I want you all to understand one rule that during this administration: there is going to be no weaponization or politicization of law enforcement capacity in this country. If somebody is a Democrat or a Republican, they get treated equally," RFK Jr. recalled.
Kennedy said his father and uncle were "horrified" in the 1960s as the FBI infiltrated the civil rights movement and anti-Vietnam War factions.
"[A]fter 9/11, it began infiltrating innocent Americans who were attending mosques," he went on, alleging that prior to the Richmond incident, the federal law enforcement bureaucracy was interfering with the "medical freedom movement" during COVID-19.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"I think this is bad, where it should not be a partisan issue. We should all be concerned," Kennedy said.
Kennedy has long been a critic of the federal bureaucracy and law enforcement agency brass, recently doubling down on insistence the CIA was involved in his uncle's assassination.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"There's millions of pages of documents; CIA documents, of transcripts, of recorded conversations from the Cuban embassy in Mexico City -- it's hard to summarize the evidence," he told "Hannity" earlier this year..
"[Warren Commission member and former CIA chief Allen Dulles] insinuated himself onto the Warren Commission and essentially ran the Warren Commission and kept this evidence from the Warren Commissioners. Either way, when Congress, 10 years later, investigated the crime with much more evidence than the Warren Commission had at its disposal," Kennedy claimed at the time.