"Moderate" Governor Hires Anti-Catholic FBI Agent to Reform Prisons

Virginia’s self-styled “moderate” governor, Abigail Spanberger, has made another bold statement about moderation. She has handed the co-chairmanship of her new Community Partnership Council on Corrections to Stanley Meador, the former FBI special agent in charge in Richmond who presided over the now-retracted 2023 memo that treated traditionalist Catholics as a fresh domestic-terrorism opportunity.

The council, Spanberger announced, will advance “safety reforms by hearing directly from [corrections] staff, incarcerated individuals, and communities across Virginia” on reentry, public accountability, and “conditions of confinement.” It will create “a permanent, structured forum for dialogue and action on the issues that matter most” so that the governor’s reforms “take root, and build a foundation for Virginia long after I am no longer in this office.”

Many things, she added, are “systemically wrong” with the state’s prisons. Meador is the man for the job. While he ran the Richmond field office, the FBI produced an internal document titled “Interest of Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists in Radical-Traditionalist Catholic Ideology Almost Certainly Presents New Mitigation Opportunities.” The memo proposed keeping an eye on Catholic churches in Virginia and drew its analytical horsepower from the Southern Poverty Law Center, an outfit now facing wire-fraud charges for its long practice of labeling conservative Christians as extremists.

The memo leaked. The FBI yanked it back.

Bishop Barry Knestout of Richmond called it a “threat to religious liberty.” Then-Attorney General Merrick Garland told the Senate Judiciary Committee it was “appalling. It’s appalling. I’m in complete agreement with you.” FBI Director Christopher Wray told the House Judiciary Committee he had been “aghast” and ordered the thing withdrawn the moment he saw it.

The Justice Department inspector general later concluded the memo failed basic analytic standards and lacked sufficient evidence. Meador met with diocesan leaders and expressed regret for the “negative attention.” He did not, however, express regret for the memo itself. When one of his own subordinates apologized for having helped draft the document, Meador replied in an email: “No apology needed. I’m glad you are on the team and thankful for your commitment. Keep that head up, this too shall pass. Will make for a great chapter in your memoirs some day!”

That is the fellow Spanberger has now placed in a position to shape prison policy by listening to “incarcerated individuals.” The same administration that once worried traditional Catholics might radicalize has decided the urgent task is to give convicted criminals a structured forum in which to explain what is “systemically wrong” with their living arrangements.

Spanberger billed herself as a moderate on the campaign trail. Since taking office she has stocked her administration with a former Obama adviser who favored masking two-year-olds and mandatory COVID shots, a trans activist, and an advocate tied to a Soros-funded criminal-justice group. Appointing the man who ran the Richmond office during the Catholic memo was apparently just the next logical step in that program of moderation.Virginia’s prisons have recently featured MS-13 gang members, here illegally and already convicted of violent crimes including murder, stabbing three corrections officers.

At Red Onion State Prison, inmates set themselves on fire; the Department of Corrections said there was “no evidence” this was a protest and that the prisoners were simply trying to get moved.

Spanberger’s council will address these matters through dialogue, visitation-hour extensions, and a one-page code of ethics that instructs staff to “Do the Right Thing” and embrace a “People First” culture.The governor reports that her administration has already “immediately actioned” about 85 percent of the concerns raised by advocacy groups. She also cites a 56 percent drop in serious inmate-on-staff assaults and a 47 percent drop in confirmed overdoses. Other numbers, she notes, reflect how staff handle prisoners rather than any actual reduction in violence.

Meador was placed on leave and removed from the FBI in June 2025. CatholicVote national political director Logan Church observed that Spanberger’s decision to elevate him “tells every Catholic in America that violating our civil liberties isn’t a problem, it’s a pathway to advancement.” In the world of contemporary Democratic moderation, that is apparently high praise.

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