(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) Virginia Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger has appointed the controversial former FBI official behind the Biden-era surveillance of Traditional Catholics as her top public safety chief.
Spanberger named Stanley M. Meador as Virginia’s next secretary of public safety and homeland security, a cabinet-level post that oversees law enforcement and emergency agencies statewide.
Meador was the special agent in charge of the Richmond Field Office from 2021 to 2025. This is the same office that authored the infamous memo labeling traditional Catholics as potential domestic violent extremists. Meador was allegedly pushed out by FBI Director Kash Patel in June.
Despite this, Spanberger praised Meador’s tenure as an FBI official, claiming he brings 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.”
When the Biden DOJ spied on Catholics,
This guy’s team led the charge.
Now he’s getting promoted by a Democrat governor. https://t.co/jY7YOmmkUk
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) December 5, 2025
Spanberger’s elevation of Meador is unsurprising, given that the Biden administration and Democrats defended the memo as merely a warning about potential threats, even though newly declassified information showed the issue was far more widespread.
The Senate Judiciary Committee, with help from the Trump-led FBI, confirmed the memo was distributed to more than 1,000 FBI employees nationwide before whistleblowers exposed it in 2023.
The released documents also showed the FBI produced 13 additional documents and five attachments that used anti-Catholic terminology and leaned on dubious material from the left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center.
The Richmond office even generated a second memo recycling the same unsubstantiated claims about supposed links between traditional Catholicism and violent extremism. According to Sen. Chuck Grassley, that document was never released because of the political backlash.
Separate records obtained by the House Judiciary Committee revealed the Richmond office also spied on a priest who declined to repeat confessional conversations with the parishioner converting to Catholicism.
Committee findings showed FBI personnel investigated the priest’s background, monitored his planned travel and even searched for his credit card information.
The FBI’s targeting of Catholics became one of the most damaging scandals of the Biden years and drove the sweeping overhaul launched by the Trump administration.
Spanberger is expected to take office in January 2026 after winning the November 2025 election.
