FBI cuts ties with Southern Poverty Law Center, Anti-Defamation League after conservative complaints

WASHINGTON (AP) — FBI Director Kash Patel says the bureau is cutting ties with two organizations that for decades have tracked domestic extremism and racial and religious bias, a move that follows complaints about the groups from some conservatives and prominent allies of President Donald Trump.

Patel said Friday that the FBI would sever its relationship with the Southern Poverty Law Center, asserting that the organization had been turned into a “partisan smear machine” and criticizing it for its use of a “hate map” that documents alleged anti-government and hate groups inside the United States. A statement earlier in the week from Patel said the FBI would end ties with the Anti-Defamation League, a prominent Jewish advocacy organization that fights antisemitism.

The announcements amount to a dramatic rethinking of longstanding FBI partnerships with prominent civil rights groups at a time when Patel is moving rapidly to reshape the nation’s premier federal law enforcement agency. The organizations over the years have provided research on hate crime and domestic extremism, law enforcement training and other services but have also been criticized by some conservatives for what they say is an unfair maligning of their viewpoints.

That criticism escalated after the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk amid renewed attention to the SPLC’s characterization of the group, Turning Point USA, that Kirk founded and led. The SPLC included a section on Turning Point in a report titled “The Year in Hate and Extremism 2024” that described the group as “A Case Study of the Hard Right in 2024.” Prominent figures including Elon Musk lambasted the SPLC just this week about its descriptions of Kirk and the organization.

A spokesperson for the SPLC, a legal and advocacy group founded in 1971 as a watchdog for minorities and the underprivileged, did not directly address Patel’s comments in a statement Friday but said the organization has for decades shared data with the public and remains “committed to exposing hate and extremism as we work to equip communities with knowledge and defend the rights and safety of marginalized people.”

The Anti-Defamation League has also faced criticism on the right for maintaining a “Glossary of Extremism.” The organization announced this week that it was discontinuing that glossary because a number of entries were outdated and some were being “intentionally misrepresented and misused.”

Founded in 1913 to confront antisemitism, the ADL has long worked closely with the FBI, not only through research and training but also through awards ceremonies that recognize law enforcement officials involved in investigations into racially or religiously motivated extremism.

Former FBI Director James Comey paid tribute to that relationship in May 2017 when he said at an ADL event: “For more than 100 years, you have advocated and fought for fairness and equality, for inclusion and acceptance. You never were indifferent or complacent.”

A Patel antagonist, Comey was indicted last week on false statement and obstruction charges and has said he is innocent. Patel appeared to mock Comey’s 2017 comments in a post Wednesday on X in which he shared a Fox News story that quoted him as having cut ties with the ADL.

“James Comey wrote ‘love letters’ to the ADL and embedded FBI agents with them – a group that ran disgraceful ops spying on Americans,” he said in a post made as Jews were preparing to begin observing Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar. “That era is OVER. This FBI won’t partner with political fronts masquerading as watchdogs.

An ADL spokesman did not immediately comment Friday on Patel’s announcement, but the group’s CEO and national director Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement Wednesday that the ADL “has deep respect” for the FBI.

“In light of an unprecedented surge of antisemitism, we remain more committed than ever to our core purpose to protect the Jewish people,” Greenblatt said.