One of the problems with federal authority is the constant overreach. Federal law enforcement was supposed to focus on cases with its purview. How is this within its purview?

The Justice Department (DOJ) has opened a federal investigation into the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), the second-largest Christian domination in the country, following a report that alleged church leaders ignored survivors of sexual abuse.

The DOJ investigation will include “multiple entities” of the SBC, and each entity intends to cooperate with the investigation, according to a statement from the SBC.

The DOJ had opened an investigation into sex abuse cases in the Catholic Church in 2018 and came up with nothing more than a defrocked priest “lying to the FBI” which is basically an admission that this was a waste of everyone’s time but that the people in charge wanted to act like they had come away with something.

The laborious grounds for a federal investigation of the Catholic Church in Philly was looking for whether priests had used child porn or if church leaders used church funds to cover up misconduct. That was somewhere between a fishing expedition and a very long reach. It was pretty obviously a case of the federal government looking for excuses to intrude into areas it had no particular reason to be. Never mind proposals to use racketeering charges.

Using RICO against political and cultural opponents is obviously a dream. 

Now maybe this is all above board, but the SBC is conservative-leaning and under AG Garland, the DOJ has become a political machine targeting political opponents.

It’s unclear if the SBC investigation is national or by a local office, but either way there are basic questions about who is responsible and what the scope is. As the recent Mar-a-Lago raid reminds us, federal secrecy allows civil rights to die in darkness while political corruption thrives.

The public deserves answers about the agendas behind the scenes.