August 27, 2025 • 11 mins
"Malfeasance isn't just a few isolated incidents; it's a systemic problem that affects the entire organization."
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- Grassley: FBI Must Own Up To Congress On Origins Of Anti-Catholic Memo
- Investigations of Catholic citizens and churches.
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You found the podcast Go Beyond the Brief, where we
take a deep dive into the societal currents shaping our lives. Together,
we'll explore the often unseen forces at play. We'll examine
the research, dissect the data, and most importantly, if you're
seeking to understand what's shaping our society, really tragic.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
And complex events at Annunciation Catholic Church and School in
Minneapolis that was Wednesday, August twenty seventh, twenty twenty five.
We've got a range of sources here, news reports, notes,
official statements, and our goal really is to sift through
all these details, pull out the key insights, understand the nuances,
and maybe figure out what truly stands out about this
incredibly impactful event. So the violence itself unfolded just before
(00:41):
eight thirty in the morning, who was doing the first
school wide mass of the academic year, and the details
are just harrowing. Two children only eight and ten years old,
were shot and killed in the church pews. Seventeen others
were injured, mostly children age six to fifteen, plus three
elderly adults. The shooter, identified as twenty three year old
Robin Westman, died later by suicide, but digging into these sources,
(01:03):
something really unexpected came up. A connection, a really personal one.
Robin Westman's mother, Mary Grace Westman, she worked at Annunciation School, Yeah,
as an administrative assistant for five years. She only retired
back in twenty twenty one. So this wasn't just a
random location. There's a direct link there.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
That connection. Yeah, that really complicates things, doesn't it. Because
you see this meticulously planned attack, firing dozens of realms
from outside the church windows, and there was apparently a
manifesto mentioning scouting entrances, plans to barricade doors, even real forethought.
But then you have this individual, Robin Westman, with absolutely
no prior criminal record. That kind of planning, combined with
(01:38):
no history, it presents a huge challenge for well for
identifying threats beforehand.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
A massive challenge. How do you predict that if someone
plans meticulously but has no red flags, no record, what
does that tell us? Are we even looking for the
right thing? And the complexity just keeps building when you
look at the shooter's identity itself. There are court documents
from twenty nineteen. The mother filed to change the child's
name from Robert to Robin stating a minor child identifies
(02:05):
as female. But then official statements from authorities about Westmuth's
gender identity have been well contradictory, confusing even.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Right, and that confusion sort of mirrors the public divergence
we're seeing around the motive itself. It's quite striking. You
have the FBI classifying it as domestic terrorism and a
hate crime targeting Catholics, so they're pointing towards ideology specifically
targeting our religious group. But then you have Minneapolis Police
Chief Brian O'Hara saying, essentially, hold on, we haven't determined
(02:36):
a motive yet, and he specifically mentioned police hadn't found
an established relationship between the shooter and the church.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Which seems directly contradicted by the mother's employment history we
just talked about. That's a major disconnect, it really is.
And then there's the digital footprint. These sources mentioned disturbing
writings things like references to suicidal thoughts depression, but also
freezes like kill Donald Trump and where is Your God?
Other reports mentioned racist and anti Semitic messages to it.
(03:03):
It's real tangle.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
It paints a very fragmented picture, doesn't it It's hard
to isolate one single driving force. You've got this mix
of like deep personal despair, maybe mental health struggles, intertwined
with these external ideological grievances, political anger, hate speech. It
makes drawing a clear line from cause to effect incredibly difficult. Yeah,
(03:25):
but what is clear, tragically is the human cost. Amidst
that chaos. You had school staff acting heroically, moving students
under pews for safety. The principle praised their actions, saying
it prevented something even.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Worse, unbelievable courage.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
And the sheer volume of gunfire maybe fifty shots in
just four minutes, the sources say, left officers, the whole
community just deeply traumatized. You can only imagine, you really can't.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
And you know, connecting this to the bigger picture, this
isn't in a vacuum. Is it targeting the most vulnerable
people in a community. It feels like part of this
wider crisis of gun violence we keep seeing and the
community's reaction shifting from shock to these pragmatic demands like
calling for armed security in schools. That shows a real shift,
a disturbing one in how secure people feel.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Absolutely, and I think what this deep dive really highlights
is just how intricate these tragedies are. They're not simple.
They're woven from personal histories, complicated identities, conflicting ideas about motive.
They often resist easy explanations, leaving us with frankly, more
questions about prevention than answers.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
So, yes, we try to piece all this together, these
conflicting narratives, the personal connection, the mixed online messages. The
challenge facing all of us becomes pretty stark, doesn't it.
How do you even begin to address the roots of
this kind of violence when the motive seem like such
a complex not personal despair, ideology, hate, maybe mental health
(04:49):
issues all tangled up, especially when the perpetrator has no
obvious warning signs in their past. It's definitely a question
for all of us to think about moving forward.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Intelligence memo the Richmond domain perspective. Now you might be thinking, Okay,
was there some connection here to a school shooting. We
looked at the documents and the short answer is no,
not directly mentioned. But what is here, Well, it offers
a really profound contrast to the story we often hear
about domestic extremism and how the government deals with it. Okay,
let's unpack this. So the heart of this is that
(05:18):
FBI memo, it's called interest of racially or ethnically Motivated
violent Extremists in Radical Traditionalist Catholic ideology almost certainly presents
new mitigation opportunities. Quite a title. Its main point. It
connects these racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists RMVES to
a specific religious subgroup, Radical Traditionalist Catholicism or RTC.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Yeah, and what's fascinating here really is that this wasn't
just some abstract idea. The memo actually pointed to specific
real world cases and are showing actual lethal preparations. For instance,
there's this unnamed RMVE subject in Virginia arrested with eight
molotov cocktails, smoke bombs, firearms components, and he claimed to
be a quote radical traditional Catholic clerical fascists.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Then you add Robert Reynolds in Portland. He apparently gravitated
towards the SSPX as a traditionalist Catholic group, posted online
about being radicalized by the Internet, even captioned photos, joined
the Catholic Taliban, and he was investigated for weapons violation.
Catholic Taliban.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
That's quite a phrase.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
It is. And there was a third case mentioned from Milwaukee.
A subject too was part of an anti LGBTQ group
called Imperium, and this person also went to an SSBX
affiliated church.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Okay, so those examples are well, very specific and disturbing.
It really grounds that theoretical link in tangible threats, doesn't it. So,
Like you said, no direct school shooting link mention, but
these cases certainly show the kind of ideology and extremist
motivation that could potentially drive that sort of violence. The
threat seems demonstrably real. But then how the FBI identified
(06:49):
this threat and maybe more importantly, how they handled it.
That's where things get really complicated. So next week get
to Senator Grassley's major point of contention. He argues that
the memo relied heavily on the side than Poverty Law
Center the SBLC. Now, the SPLC is known for tracking
hate groups, but Senator Grassley in his letter, he describes
them as thoroughly discredited and biased.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Right, And the thing is, internal FBI communications apparently confirmed
this reliance actually violated their own analytics standards, their trade
craft as they call it. These standards are required describing
the quality the credibility of your sources. An internal review
even stated extra care was needed precisely because the SBLC
had labeled the group a hate group. They didn't really
(07:31):
examine SPLC's criteria or map it to the FBI's own definitions.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
So their own internal review flagged it exactly.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
And what's maybe more concerning is that this wasn't just
a one off thing. An internal FBI search dug up
at least thirteen other FBI documents plus five attachments that
used similar language and also cited the SBLC. Some of
these went back as far as two thousand and nine,
so it points towards, well, maybe a broader, more systemic
issue with sourcing.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
Okay, so the FBI's own review found issues with sourcing,
found a pattern is using a group like the SPLC,
given that description by the senator, raise sort of unique
concerns for intelligence gathering compared to other sources.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
I think it does. Yeah, when an intelligence agency relies
heavily on a source that a senior lawmaker publicly calls
biased and their own internal processes flag it for violating standards, well,
it definitely impacts the perceived objectivity. It raises serious questions.
You know, are the FBI's own definitions of extremism getting
blurred or maybe unduly shaped by an outside group's agenda.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Right, That makes sense. So, moving beyond the memos content
and sourcing, Senator Grassley also alleges what he called a
pattern of deliberate obstruction by FBI leadership regarding this whole situation.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Yes, and the allegations here are pretty serious. The letter
points to potentially misleading testimony. Director Ray apparently claimed publicly
in April and July twenty twenty three that the internal
review was still ongoing or not completed yet, but FBI
documents included in Grassley's letters seem to show the review
was actually finalized back in April twenty twenty three, weeks
(09:02):
even months earlier.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
That's a direct contradiction, it appears so.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
And Ray also testified the memo was just a single
product by a single field office, but internal communication show
the Richmond analysts actually consulted with Louisville, Portland, and Milwaukee
field offices. Plus there was evidence of a second draft
intelligence product, a spear report on the very same topic,
potentially for wider distribution.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
So multiple offices involved and potentially a second document planned.
Those are pretty significant discrepancies compared to the testimony. What
are the implications of that?
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Well, they really erode public trust, don't they. When you
hear conflicting accounts like that from the very top, especially
about an internal review meant to fix a problem, it
just breeds suspicion and it gets worse. According to a
House Judiciary Committee report cited by Grassley, the then FBI
Deputy Director Paul Abbott allegedly ordered the permanent removal of
the memo, not just the memo, but any edits or
(10:00):
references from all FBI systems. This was apparently ordered the
day the memo became public knowledge. The report says this
led to a permanent loss of records.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Permanent loss of records, that's what.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
The House report alleges. And there was also an internal
email ordering the pull down of an Excel sheet that
listed who would even access the memo. I mean, if
you connect these dots, the sourcing issues, the alleged misleading statements,
the deletion orders, it raises really serious questions about transparency,
about accountability.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
Yeah, it certainly does. So what does this all mean
when we step back this deep dive, it seems to
show this stark contrast. It's not just about understanding extremist
ideologies in a new way, but it's also this well
troubling picture of alleged government misconduct, obpuscation, even destruction of
records potentially, and that fundamentally changes how you might view
(10:49):
public stories about violence and about the institutions responding to it. It
really highlights a critical need for transparency for accountability and
government intelligence.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Absolutely, and maybe this leaves you, the listener with an
important question to think about, what does it really mean
for public trust when the agencies we rely on for
protection face accusations of such well profound and systemic lack
of transparency when handling sensitive
You found the podcast Go Beyond the Brief, where we
take a deep dive into the societal currents shaping our lives. Together,
we'll explore the often unseen forces at play. We'll examine
the research, dissect the data, and most importantly, if you're
seeking to understand what's shaping our society, really tragic.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
And complex events at Annunciation Catholic Church and School in
Minneapolis that was Wednesday, August twenty seventh, twenty twenty five.
We've got a range of sources here, news reports, notes,
official statements, and our goal really is to sift through
all these details, pull out the key insights, understand the nuances,
and maybe figure out what truly stands out about this
incredibly impactful event. So the violence itself unfolded just before
(00:41):
eight thirty in the morning, who was doing the first
school wide mass of the academic year, and the details
are just harrowing. Two children only eight and ten years old,
were shot and killed in the church pews. Seventeen others
were injured, mostly children age six to fifteen, plus three
elderly adults. The shooter, identified as twenty three year old
Robin Westman, died later by suicide, but digging into these sources,
(01:03):
something really unexpected came up. A connection, a really personal one.
Robin Westman's mother, Mary Grace Westman, she worked at Annunciation School, Yeah,
as an administrative assistant for five years. She only retired
back in twenty twenty one. So this wasn't just a
random location. There's a direct link there.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
That connection. Yeah, that really complicates things, doesn't it. Because
you see this meticulously planned attack, firing dozens of realms
from outside the church windows, and there was apparently a
manifesto mentioning scouting entrances, plans to barricade doors, even real forethought.
But then you have this individual, Robin Westman, with absolutely
no prior criminal record. That kind of planning, combined with
(01:38):
no history, it presents a huge challenge for well for
identifying threats beforehand.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
A massive challenge. How do you predict that if someone
plans meticulously but has no red flags, no record, what
does that tell us? Are we even looking for the
right thing? And the complexity just keeps building when you
look at the shooter's identity itself. There are court documents
from twenty nineteen. The mother filed to change the child's
name from Robert to Robin stating a minor child identifies
(02:05):
as female. But then official statements from authorities about Westmuth's
gender identity have been well contradictory, confusing even.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Right, and that confusion sort of mirrors the public divergence
we're seeing around the motive itself. It's quite striking. You
have the FBI classifying it as domestic terrorism and a
hate crime targeting Catholics, so they're pointing towards ideology specifically
targeting our religious group. But then you have Minneapolis Police
Chief Brian O'Hara saying, essentially, hold on, we haven't determined
(02:36):
a motive yet, and he specifically mentioned police hadn't found
an established relationship between the shooter and the church.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Which seems directly contradicted by the mother's employment history we
just talked about. That's a major disconnect, it really is.
And then there's the digital footprint. These sources mentioned disturbing
writings things like references to suicidal thoughts depression, but also
freezes like kill Donald Trump and where is Your God?
Other reports mentioned racist and anti Semitic messages to it.
(03:03):
It's real tangle.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
It paints a very fragmented picture, doesn't it It's hard
to isolate one single driving force. You've got this mix
of like deep personal despair, maybe mental health struggles, intertwined
with these external ideological grievances, political anger, hate speech. It
makes drawing a clear line from cause to effect incredibly difficult. Yeah,
(03:25):
but what is clear, tragically is the human cost. Amidst
that chaos. You had school staff acting heroically, moving students
under pews for safety. The principle praised their actions, saying
it prevented something even.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Worse, unbelievable courage.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
And the sheer volume of gunfire maybe fifty shots in
just four minutes, the sources say, left officers, the whole
community just deeply traumatized. You can only imagine, you really can't.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
And you know, connecting this to the bigger picture, this
isn't in a vacuum. Is it targeting the most vulnerable
people in a community. It feels like part of this
wider crisis of gun violence we keep seeing and the
community's reaction shifting from shock to these pragmatic demands like
calling for armed security in schools. That shows a real shift,
a disturbing one in how secure people feel.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Absolutely, and I think what this deep dive really highlights
is just how intricate these tragedies are. They're not simple.
They're woven from personal histories, complicated identities, conflicting ideas about motive.
They often resist easy explanations, leaving us with frankly, more
questions about prevention than answers.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
So, yes, we try to piece all this together, these
conflicting narratives, the personal connection, the mixed online messages. The
challenge facing all of us becomes pretty stark, doesn't it.
How do you even begin to address the roots of
this kind of violence when the motive seem like such
a complex not personal despair, ideology, hate, maybe mental health
(04:49):
issues all tangled up, especially when the perpetrator has no
obvious warning signs in their past. It's definitely a question
for all of us to think about moving forward.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Intelligence memo the Richmond domain perspective. Now you might be thinking, Okay,
was there some connection here to a school shooting. We
looked at the documents and the short answer is no,
not directly mentioned. But what is here, Well, it offers
a really profound contrast to the story we often hear
about domestic extremism and how the government deals with it. Okay,
let's unpack this. So the heart of this is that
(05:18):
FBI memo, it's called interest of racially or ethnically Motivated
violent Extremists in Radical Traditionalist Catholic ideology almost certainly presents
new mitigation opportunities. Quite a title. Its main point. It
connects these racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists RMVES to
a specific religious subgroup, Radical Traditionalist Catholicism or RTC.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Yeah, and what's fascinating here really is that this wasn't
just some abstract idea. The memo actually pointed to specific
real world cases and are showing actual lethal preparations. For instance,
there's this unnamed RMVE subject in Virginia arrested with eight
molotov cocktails, smoke bombs, firearms components, and he claimed to
be a quote radical traditional Catholic clerical fascists.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Then you add Robert Reynolds in Portland. He apparently gravitated
towards the SSPX as a traditionalist Catholic group, posted online
about being radicalized by the Internet, even captioned photos, joined
the Catholic Taliban, and he was investigated for weapons violation.
Catholic Taliban.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
That's quite a phrase.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
It is. And there was a third case mentioned from Milwaukee.
A subject too was part of an anti LGBTQ group
called Imperium, and this person also went to an SSBX
affiliated church.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Okay, so those examples are well, very specific and disturbing.
It really grounds that theoretical link in tangible threats, doesn't it. So,
Like you said, no direct school shooting link mention, but
these cases certainly show the kind of ideology and extremist
motivation that could potentially drive that sort of violence. The
threat seems demonstrably real. But then how the FBI identified
(06:49):
this threat and maybe more importantly, how they handled it.
That's where things get really complicated. So next week get
to Senator Grassley's major point of contention. He argues that
the memo relied heavily on the side than Poverty Law
Center the SBLC. Now, the SPLC is known for tracking
hate groups, but Senator Grassley in his letter, he describes
them as thoroughly discredited and biased.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Right, And the thing is, internal FBI communications apparently confirmed
this reliance actually violated their own analytics standards, their trade
craft as they call it. These standards are required describing
the quality the credibility of your sources. An internal review
even stated extra care was needed precisely because the SBLC
had labeled the group a hate group. They didn't really
(07:31):
examine SPLC's criteria or map it to the FBI's own definitions.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
So their own internal review flagged it exactly.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
And what's maybe more concerning is that this wasn't just
a one off thing. An internal FBI search dug up
at least thirteen other FBI documents plus five attachments that
used similar language and also cited the SBLC. Some of
these went back as far as two thousand and nine,
so it points towards, well, maybe a broader, more systemic
issue with sourcing.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
Okay, so the FBI's own review found issues with sourcing,
found a pattern is using a group like the SPLC,
given that description by the senator, raise sort of unique
concerns for intelligence gathering compared to other sources.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
I think it does. Yeah, when an intelligence agency relies
heavily on a source that a senior lawmaker publicly calls
biased and their own internal processes flag it for violating standards, well,
it definitely impacts the perceived objectivity. It raises serious questions.
You know, are the FBI's own definitions of extremism getting
blurred or maybe unduly shaped by an outside group's agenda.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Right, That makes sense. So, moving beyond the memos content
and sourcing, Senator Grassley also alleges what he called a
pattern of deliberate obstruction by FBI leadership regarding this whole situation.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Yes, and the allegations here are pretty serious. The letter
points to potentially misleading testimony. Director Ray apparently claimed publicly
in April and July twenty twenty three that the internal
review was still ongoing or not completed yet, but FBI
documents included in Grassley's letters seem to show the review
was actually finalized back in April twenty twenty three, weeks
(09:02):
even months earlier.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
That's a direct contradiction, it appears so.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
And Ray also testified the memo was just a single
product by a single field office, but internal communication show
the Richmond analysts actually consulted with Louisville, Portland, and Milwaukee
field offices. Plus there was evidence of a second draft
intelligence product, a spear report on the very same topic,
potentially for wider distribution.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
So multiple offices involved and potentially a second document planned.
Those are pretty significant discrepancies compared to the testimony. What
are the implications of that?
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Well, they really erode public trust, don't they. When you
hear conflicting accounts like that from the very top, especially
about an internal review meant to fix a problem, it
just breeds suspicion and it gets worse. According to a
House Judiciary Committee report cited by Grassley, the then FBI
Deputy Director Paul Abbott allegedly ordered the permanent removal of
the memo, not just the memo, but any edits or
(10:00):
references from all FBI systems. This was apparently ordered the
day the memo became public knowledge. The report says this
led to a permanent loss of records.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Permanent loss of records, that's what.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
The House report alleges. And there was also an internal
email ordering the pull down of an Excel sheet that
listed who would even access the memo. I mean, if
you connect these dots, the sourcing issues, the alleged misleading statements,
the deletion orders, it raises really serious questions about transparency,
about accountability.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
Yeah, it certainly does. So what does this all mean
when we step back this deep dive, it seems to
show this stark contrast. It's not just about understanding extremist
ideologies in a new way, but it's also this well
troubling picture of alleged government misconduct, obpuscation, even destruction of
records potentially, and that fundamentally changes how you might view
(10:49):
public stories about violence and about the institutions responding to it. It
really highlights a critical need for transparency for accountability and
government intelligence.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Absolutely, and maybe this leaves you, the listener with an
important question to think about, what does it really mean
for public trust when the agencies we rely on for
protection face accusations of such well profound and systemic lack
of transparency when handling sensitive
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