The Federal Bureau of Investigation headquarters building is seen in Washington, D.C., on July 3, 2023. (Getty Images)
Though Defendant A was not been identified in the report, the dates and details of the case match the case against Xavier Lopez, who was indicted on federal weapons charges last June.
The FBI had been monitoring the suspect since 2019 due to his extremist views on social media, according to the inspector general's review.
The review stated that the suspect expressed neo-Nazi rhetoric and described himself as a "Catholic clerical fascist." The FBI said he wrote in a letter to a family member that he needed to "build guns, explosives, and other forms of weaponry" in order to "make total war against the Satanic occultist government and the Zionist devil worshiping bankers who control it."
The indictment against Lopez did not mention the church he attended or that he was monitored ahead of his arrest in November 2022, when a search of his apartment uncovered Molotov cocktails and firearms he was not allowed to possess. Lopez was on probation at the time after pleading guilty to felony vandalism for slashing tires.
Though the investigation was appropriate, the inspector general's review criticized aspects of the memo warning about potential extremism within certain Catholic churches that was shared by the FBI's Richmond field office.
"The [FBI Inspection Division] report found that although there was no evidence of malicious intent or an improper purpose, the [memo] failed to adhere to analytic tradecraft standards and evinced errors in professional judgment, including that it lacked sufficient evidence or articulable support for a relationship between RMVEs (Racially Motivated Violent Extremists) and so-called RTC (Radical Traditional Catholicism) ideology; incorrectly conflated the subjects’ religious views with their RMVE activities, creating the appearance that the FBI had inappropriately considered religious beliefs and affiliation as a basis for conducting investigative activity; and reflected a lack of training and awareness concerning proper domestic terrorism terminology," the inspector general noted.
One of the FBI analysts involved in the creation of the memo maintained that the goal was to enable FBI Richmond to conduct outreach to these "faith communities to make them aware of what we would call warning signs to radicalization, for the protection of everybody."
The inspector general noted in his assessment that he and his team "did not find evidence that anyone ordered or directed" the individuals responsible for crafting the memo "to find a link between RMVEs and any specific religion or political affiliation … or that there was any underlying policy direction concerning such a link."
The inspector general said a review of text messages and other conversations had between those who crafted the memo at the time "did not identify any evidence of discriminatory or inappropriate comments by them" about the church in question in the FBI's investigation "or individuals who practiced a particular religious faith or held specific political beliefs."
The inspector general also noted that he and his team did not find evidence that the FBI took any investigative steps involving the church except to monitor the suspect's interactions. Investigators said they interviewed church members about the defendant's alleged intent to incite violence.
CATHOLIC VOTERS RESPOND AFTER 'DEVOUT' BIDEN ONCE AGAIN SIDES AGAINST HIS CHURCH
FBI Director Christopher Wray testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 5, 2023. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Lopez was indicted in June 2023 in federal court on one count of possessing ammunition while a convicted felon and one count of possessing destructive devices. In March of this year, he pleaded guilty to possessing destructive devices. His sentencing is scheduled to take place in September.
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Horowitz noted that there were preliminary discussions with the FBI’s Domestic Terrorism Strategic Unit to draft a similar memo to send to more field offices, but "those discussions ended following the [memo] becoming public."
Fox News' Thomas Phippen, Jake Gibson and Andrew Mark Miller contributed to this report.
Kyle Morris covers politics for Fox News. Story tips can be sent via email and on X: @RealKyleMorris.
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