Newly Uncovered FBI Emails Reveal Deep State Officials May Have Treated the SPLC Like a Government Authority

The ACLJ has just uncovered internal FBI emails through our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation that expose how senior FBI officials reacted after the FBI’s targeting of traditionalist Christians under the Biden Administration became public.

The records reveal that the FBI’s own intelligence leadership quickly identified the fatal flaw in the now-infamous Richmond memorandum: The Bureau relied on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) subjective “hate group” labels without first determining how the SPLC made those designations or whether its standards even aligned with the FBI’s own definitions.

Then the FBI’s Office of General Counsel raised an even more disturbing concern – whether Deep State officials were treating the SPLC like an official arm of the government.

The FBI Targeted Traditionalist Christians

On January 23, 2023, the FBI’s Richmond Field Office issued an intelligence product claiming that interest in “radical-traditionalist Catholic” ideology among racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists presented “new mitigation opportunities.”

Those opportunities included developing sources, establishing “tripwires,” conducting outreach to Catholic parishes, and developing sources with “placement and access” inside traditionalist Catholic communities.

The memorandum named Catholic organizations, publications, chapels, and a seminary. It relied in part on the SPLC’s list of purported “hate groups” to identify organizations associated with what the memo called “radical-traditionalist Catholic ideology.”

This was not simply an assessment of a known violent suspect who happened to attend Mass. The FBI proposed using Catholic communities themselves as potential avenues for intelligence collection.

The FBI’s Intelligence Chief Flagged the SPLC Problem

The emails we obtained show that the issue reached senior FBI officials almost immediately after the memorandum was exposed.

On February 9, 2023, Tonya Ugoretz, then the Assistant Director of the FBI’s Directorate of Intelligence, emailed a broad group of senior officials across the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division, Office of General Counsel, Office of Public Affairs, Office of Congressional Affairs, Inspection Division, Security Division, Directorate of Intelligence, and Richmond Field Office.

Ugoretz relayed the Directorate of Intelligence’s preliminary review of the memorandum and directly addressed its reliance on the SPLC:

With respect to sourcing (in particular, SPLC): SPLC has been a source for statistics and data not otherwise available to law enforcement. However, this product cites more subjective information from SPLC (a list of hate groups) without examining SPLC’s threshold for determining a hate group or explanation of how that threshold aligns with the FBI’s definition.

That is a remarkable admission from the FBI’s own intelligence leadership.

The Bureau had incorporated the SPLC’s subjective “hate group” labels into an intelligence product involving traditionalist Catholics without first examining:

• how the SPLC determined that an organization was a “hate group”;
• what evidentiary standard the SPLC used; or
• whether the SPLC’s threshold aligned with the FBI’s own definition.

The FBI appears to have imported the conclusions of a private advocacy organization without first performing the basic analytic work necessary to determine whether those conclusions satisfied federal law enforcement standards.

And this concern was not raised privately with one analyst. The head of the FBI’s intelligence directorate circulated it to senior officials across numerous Bureau components as the FBI considered recalling the memorandum.

Office of General Counsel’s Response Was Even More Disturbing

After reviewing the Directorate of Intelligence’s preliminary findings, an attorney in the FBI’s Office of General Counsel raised a deeper institutional concern:

It seems that some of our folks may be equating a third-party organization with another government organization, and perhaps we need to remind the workforce about non-governmental organizations.

That statement in and of itself is a remarkably dangerous implication of the Deep State.

The FBI’s own legal office was questioning whether Bureau personnel were treating the SPLC – a private, far-Left politically active advocacy organization – as though it were an official government authority.

The attorney then asked whether the Directorate of Intelligence (DI) had a policy addressing the treatment of advocacy organizations such as the SPLC.

The response was blunt:

“Not that DI is aware of.”

So the FBI’s lawyers warned that Bureau personnel may have been treating a private organization like a government entity, yet the FBI’s intelligence leadership apparently could not identify a policy warning personnel against doing so.

Private organizations are free to publish reports, promote political positions, and label other groups as they see fit. But their conclusions are not judicial findings. They are not official intelligence assessments. And they cannot substitute for independently verified evidence of criminal conduct.

This Was Not Merely One Isolated Field Office Error

Former FBI Director Christopher Wray later attempted to minimize the controversy.

During testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on July 12, 2023, Wray described the Richmond memorandum as “a single product by a single field office.”

But the records show that the memorandum relied on reporting involving FBI Richmond, an FBI Portland liaison contact, an FBI undercover employee, FBI investigative files, local law enforcement, and other liaison reporting. Its approval page also states that it was coordinated with personnel in Portland and another redacted FBI office.

The newly uncovered February email chain further shows that senior officials across Intelligence, Counterterrorism, Legal, Public Affairs, Congressional Affairs, Inspection, Security, and Richmond were immediately involved in reviewing and responding to the memorandum.

Five months later, Wray described the matter as the work of “a single field office.” But these records reveal a broader intelligence, legal, and institutional problem.

The FBI Cannot Outsource Its Judgment

Federal law enforcement must investigate criminal conduct – not disfavored theology, traditional religious practice, or constitutionally protected political beliefs.

The FBI cannot outsource its judgment to a private far-Left ideological organization and then use that organization’s subjective labels to justify intelligence collection involving churches and religious communities.

These records expose both an analytic failure and a deeper institutional danger: FBI personnel may have been treating the SPLC’s private accusations with the authority of an official government determination.

The American people deserve to know how often the FBI has relied on private far-Left political organizations to categorize citizens, churches, and religious groups – and what safeguards, if any, have been put in place to ensure this never happens again.

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