Republicans criticize Spanberger’s pick for Public Safety and Homeland Security Secretary 

RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) -- Virginia Republicans are criticizing Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger (D) and her pick to be Virginia’s next Secretary of Public Safety and Homeland Security. 

Last week, Spanberger announced she would appoint Stanley Meador, who previously led Richmond’s FBI Field Office, to the post. 

Meador was still in charge of the Richmond office in 2023, when two analysts wrote a controversial memo about a subset of Catholics. 

“The Richmond FBI Field Office is not that big, and this gentleman was the leader of it, and the buck stops with him,” Senator Glen Sturtevant (R-Colonial Heights) told 8News. 

The memo was written after a Central Virginia man, who described himself as a radical traditional Catholic, was found with “ammunition, a firearms build kit, a 3D printer, multiple Molotov cocktail-type improvised incendiary devices, and lockpicking devices,” according to an Inspector General’s report on the memo.

The memo said the FBI’s Richmond Office observed a potential link between “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists (RMVEs)” and “radical traditionalist Catholic ideology (RTC).”

The memo also makes it clear that radical traditionalist Catholics make up a “small minority” of Catholics and are “separate and distinct from traditionalist Catholics.” 

However, Republicans, including Sturtevant, saw the memo and the preceding investigation, which included an undercover FBI agent in a church, as proof that the Department of Justice under former President Joe Biden -- a Catholic himself -- was targeting Catholics.

“For this person to be nominated to be Secretary of Public Safety and Homeland Security, I think, is very concerning,” Sturtevant said.

However, according to the Inspector General’s report, an FBI review of the memo found “no evidence of malicious intent or an improper purpose.”

Alternatively, it also said 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 and so-called RTC ideology; incorrectly conflated the subjects’ religious views with their 2 RMVE activities, creating the appearance that the FBI had inappropriately considered religious beliefs and affiliation as a basis for conducting investigative activity.”

8News reached out to Governor-elect Spanberger’s transition office repeatedly for this story, but never heard back. 

When nominating Meador, Spanberger said, “I know Mr. Meador’s decades of service to our country and our Commonwealth will bring the expertise necessary to protect our citizens, support the brave men and women of law enforcement, and make sure Virginia is a place where every Virginian can safely thrive — no matter their zip code.”

In a statement, the Catholic Diocese of Richmond said, “Bishop Knestout wishes Mr. Meador well in his new role and looks forward to a good working relationship with him."