There’s a pernicious “ingrained bigotry” against people of faith within the U.S. Department of Justice that needs to be rooted out and investigated for crimes and constitutional violations, says Missouri Senator Josh Hawley.

“I think that they don’t like people of faith,” Hawley told The Heartlander in an exclusive interview Thursday, after urging attorney general nominee Pam Bondi at her confirmation hearing to crack down on the DOJ’s abuse of religious people.

“Let’s just be honest. I think there’s an ingrained bigotry in a lot of these bureaucrats – and in, frankly, a lot of the far left-wing. They do not like people of faith, particularly if you’re conservative. If you’re a conservative Catholic, if you’re a conservative evangelical, if you’re a conservative Jew, they suspect you. They call you all kinds of names. 

“And don’t take my word for it. Look at the memo that the FBI issued trying to recruit spies into what they called ‘traditionalist’ Catholic parishes. And you know if they’re doing it with Catholics, they’re doing it with everybody.”

That begs the question: What does the DOJ consider to be a “traditionalist” anyway?

“It just means people who are conservative,” Hawley argues. “They wanted to use, and did use, the power of the FBI to infiltrate parishes. This is unbelievable. I mean, really, to happen in our country. And it hasn’t been stopped.  

“So, I called on soon-to-be Attorney General Bondi to put a stop to this. She pledged to me she would. I called on her to investigate who was involved. She said she would. We need to get accountability now, and we need to start protecting Americans of all backgrounds. And that absolutely includes people of faith.”

In the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing for Bondi, Hawley enumerated the DOJ’s abuses of parents and people of faith: sweeping pro-lifers up in SWAT-team-style arrests and punitive federal prosecutions, while remarkably prosecuting only two of the 300 attacks on churches and 100-plus firebombings and other attacks on pro-life pregnancy care centers that occurred after the overturning of Roe v. Wade was announced.

Hawley also recalled the department’s labeling as domestic terrorists the parents who were simply angry at school boards for sexual and racial indoctrination, COVID policies, and actual assaults of children.

“They used the FBI to go after parents who went to school board meetings and said ‘I don’t want my kid wearing a mask’ or ‘I don’t want my kid being taught critical race theory.’ And they activated the FBI against these people. 

“By the way, that policy is also still in place. Attorney General Bondi pledged to me she would rescind that policy immediately. And I tell you, people should have been removed from office for this. And with a new administration, I want to see people fired who are involved in it.”

Has the Biden DOJ committed any crimes in its pursuit of people of faith?

“I think it’s very possible,” Hawley says. “I certainly think they violated the Constitution. The First Amendment, if it doesn’t protect your ability to go to church and not have some government spy sitting next to you just because they don’t like your theology, then what does it protect? 

“So, I think there are, at a minimum, serious constitutional violations here, which is why I think there needs to be a thorough investigation and anybody who is involved needs to be reported, needs to be exposed, needs to be fired. And yeah, if they’ve committed a crime it needs to be prosecuted.”

But how can Bondi, or any other attorney general, get arms around such a massive perversion of the justice department?

One perpetrator at a time, Hawley suggests.

“You’ve got to expose the bad actors. The way that you get people back to following the law is, you start exposing the people who didn’t. 

“And that’s why there needs to be an internal investigation. That’s why the results need to be public. We need to see who thought it was a good idea to try to get spies into churches. Who advocated and pushed sending FBI agents to the homes of parents who went to school board meetings?

“The public deserves to know. And I can tell you, those people who did that stuff should not be anywhere near power.”

Hawley announced he will go after many of these matters as chairman of a subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism.

“Well, we’re going to look at these issues, I can tell you, among others. We’re going to look at the abuse of the FBI and the DOJ; that is squarely in our jurisdiction. We’re going to take it seriously.

“And I’m particularly concerned about abuse against people of faith and on the basis of political ideology. We’ve all seen it; we’ve lived through it the last four years. We need to expose what happened, and we need to hold those people who did it accountable.”

Such an unprecedented targeting of people of faith by their own government would seem to be a scandal for the ages.

Why hasn’t it become more of a story in the here and now?

“Well, because the media’s tried to cover it up,” Hawley suggests. “It is a scandal for the history books. It’s one of the worst things the FBI has ever done. You think about back in the J. Edgar Hoover days, we’ve all heard the stories about how he would wiretap his political opponents totally illegally. He was also virulently anti-Catholic, anti-religious. And now they’re back at it. 

“It doesn’t get a lot worse than this. The only thing I would say that rivals it is what they did to parents.”