The FBI is cutting ties with the Anti-Defamation League and Southern Poverty Law Center, Kash Patel, director of the federal U.S. law-enforcement agency, stated last week in a pair of social-media posts.
Patel blamed the ADL partnership on his predecessor, James Comey, whom the U.S. Justice Department indicted last month for allegedly making false statements and obstruction of justice. Those allegations relate to Senate testimony he gave about the 2016 investigation into potential links between the Trump presidential campaign and Russia.
“James Comey wrote ‘love letters’ to the ADL and embedded FBI agents with them, a group that ran disgraceful ops spying on Americans,” Patel stated. “That era is over. This FBI won’t partner with political fronts masquerading as watchdogs.”
The FBI previously required new agents to attend an ADL program called “law enforcement and society: lessons of the Holocaust” that Comey called “eye-opening and insightful” in a 2014 speech that he described as a “love letter” to the organization.
The ADL had also come under fire in recent weeks from conservative lawmakers and social commentators over its “glossary of hate,” which included entries for Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA organization and for a radical religious movement called Christian Identity, which many commentators took as a slight against Christians in general.
“The ADL hates Christians. Therefore, it is a hate group,” Elon Musk stated on Sept. 28.
The Jewish group stated it decided to “retire” the glossary on Tuesday, and that its entries had been “misrepresented and misused.”
On Wednesday, the ADL responded to Patel’s announcement that the bureau was cutting ties with the nonprofit.
“ADL has deep respect for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and law-enforcement officers at all levels across the country who work tirelessly every single day to protect all Americans regardless of their ancestry, religion, ethnicity, faith, political affiliation or any other point of difference,” the group stated.
“In light of an unprecedented surge of antisemitism, we remain more committed than ever to our core purpose to protect the Jewish people,” it said.
Patel said that the bureau would also cut ties with the Southern Poverty Law Center, which critics allege is politically biased in its labeling of “hate groups.”
“The Southern Poverty Law Center long ago abandoned civil rights work and turned into a partisan smear machine,” Patel wrote. “Their so-called ‘hate map’ has been used to defame mainstream Americans and even inspired violence. That disgraceful record makes them unfit for any FBI partnership.”
“Under this FBI, all ties with the SPLC have officially been terminated,” he said.
