Jim Jordan threatens FBI director Wray with contempt over parent, Catholic targeting files

WASHINGTON — House Judiciary Committee chairman Jim Jordan threatened Monday to hold FBI Director Christopher Wray in contempt if he doesn’t provide details of the bureau’s focus on parents upset about school policies and the proposed infiltration of Catholics who oppose abortion.

Jordan (R-Ohio) wrote to Wray that he was outraged by the FBI’s “wholly inadequate” response to legally binding subpoenas issued in February and April by the Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee focused on the “weaponization” of the government, which Jordan also chairs.

“After several accommodations, months of persistent outreach by the Committee, and attempts to negotiate and work with the FBI in good faith, we write to notify you that if the FBI does not improve its compliance substantially, the Committee will take action—such as the initiation of contempt of Congress proceedings—to obtain compliance with these subpoenas,” Jordan wrote.

The threat to hold Wray in contempt follows a similar threat successfully used in May by House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) to force the bureau to share an informant file accusing President Biden of accepting a $5 million bribe from a Ukrainian energy executive while he was vice president .

In that prior case, the FBI at first refused to provide the informant file — before Wray scrambled to avoid a looming contempt vote by agreeing in early June to allow Oversight Committee members to see a redacted version of the tipoff. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) had backed up Comer’s threat.

Jordan wrote Monday to Wray that his panel knows that certain documents exist due to witness depositions — but that they have not not been provided. He set a July 25 deadline for the FBI to “substantially improve its compliance with the subpoenas” or face consequences.

“The FBI’s productions to date have not included material the Committee knows is, or has reason to believe may be, in the FBI’s possession and that is responsive to the subpoena,” Jordan wrote — just days after Judiciary Committee Republican grilled Wray on various topics last week.

Among those missing records is an email which could flesh out the apparent link between the National School Boards Association’s September 2021 letter to President Biden expressing concern about fired-up parents at school board meetings and a subsequent FBI focus on alleged threats made by them.

“America’s public schools and its education leaders are under an immediate threat,” the NSBA wrote in the letter to Biden at the time, citing at the time an array of rowdy parental objections against COVID-19 masking and vaccine rules and against the teaching of critical race theory.

The association later apologized for the letter after it apparently prompted an FBI focus on the matter.

Traditionally, parents and taxpayers crossing from constitutionally protected speech and lawful criticism into criminal threats has been a matter for local, not federal, law enforcement.

Jordan wrote that former FBI Section Chief of Domestic Terrorism Operations Steve Jensen “testified that on October 1, 2021, he received an email from Kevin Chambers from DOJ’s Office of the Deputy Attorney General. Mr. Jensen testified that Mr. Chambers emailed him a copy of the NSBA’s letter to President Biden and asked that he coordinate and look into whether the FBI could engage on the alleged threats.”

“At Mr. Jensen’s transcribed interview, the [FBI office of general counsel] attorneys accompanying Mr. Jensen agreed to produce these documents,” the letter says, but despite pressure “the FBI did not produce any of the documents mentioned during the two transcribed interviews.”

The Catholic-targeting document request, meanwhile, pertains to a January 2023 memo drafted by the the FBI’s Richmond, Va., field office describing alleged overlap between traditionalist Catholics who oppose abortion rights and other policies and people with extremist ideologies.

“FBI Richmond assesses the increasingly observed interest of racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists (RMVEs) in radical-traditionalist Catholic (RTC) ideology almost certainly presents opportunities for threat mitigation through the exploration of new avenues for tripwire and source development,” the memo said.

Jordan wrote that records on the proposed Catholic surveillance also have been withheld.

“The memorandum itself shows that its contents, including its proposal to develop sources in Catholic churches, were reviewed and approved by two senior intelligence analysts and even the local Chief Division Counsel—the FBI’s top lawyer in the Richmond Field Office. Redactions of these names frustrates the Committee’s ability to conduct oversight, and this information is responsive to the Committee’s subpoena,” Jordan wrote.

“Whistleblower testimony confirms that the FBI distributed this document to field offices across the country. To date, the FBI has not produced any documents or communications regarding the dissemination of the memorandum,” he added.

A Republican Capitol Hill source told The Post that Wray now has a choice between compliance and contempt of Congress — which can in theory carry criminal penalties.

“The Judiciary Committee has jurisdiction to conduct congressional oversight of the FBI and fully expects the bureau to respond to subpoenas and requests for relevant documents. Failing to comply may result in contempt,” the source said.

Congress also can ensure compliance with document requests through even more severe measures such as cutting off funding for agencies and impeaching their leaders.

The FBI did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment. Democrats have sought to rebuff Jordan’s narrative of a politically weaponized federal government by arguing that individual agency actions either were justified or in error but without broader relevance.