The Sinister New Talking Point Republicans Used to Grill Merrick Garland
Molly Olmstead of Slate reports that Senate Republicans questioned Attorney General Merrick Garland on alleged anti-Catholic bias in the Federal Bureau of Investigation in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last week. Missouri Senator Josh Hawley pointed to an internal memo from the field office in Richmond, Virginia, that cited traditionalist houses of Catholic worship as places of concern for domestic extremists. Olmstead argues, however, that Hawley misconstrued the meaning of the memo. She writes, “At no point does the memo imply that the threat is the radical traditionalists; rather, the threat is that ‘racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists’ will be attracted to—or otherwise find a home among—the radical traditionalists.”