Both groups have had long-standing relationships with federal law enforcement. Patel’s announcement could portend a rethinking of how the nation’s premier law enforcement agency partners with outside groups.
Patel distances FBI from rights groups he says smear conservatives
FBI Director Kash Patel said he would sever the bureau’s relationship with the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center — two organizations that track hate groups and violent extremism — amid outcry from right-wing groups and online influencers who say the organizations wield their influence to silence conservatives.
Groups on the right have lambasted the ADL and SPLC, accusing them of wrongly labeling conservative groups as extremists. That criticism has intensified in the weeks following the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
The SPLC has described the organization that Kirk founded, Turning Point USA, as an extremist group. The ADL had listed Turning Point USA in a glossary of extremism that the organization recently closed, saying the group provided a “platform for extremists and far-right conspiracy theorists.”
In recent years, the ADL, a Jewish civil rights group, appears to have had a much closer relationship with federal law enforcement than the SPLC. It partnered with the FBI and other law enforcement agencies for decades to educate authorities on antisemitism and other forms of extremism. By contrast, The FBI and SPLC do not appear to have collaborated under the current administration.
Earlier in the week, Patel said the FBI would cut ties with the ADL, saying the group has served as a “political front.”
He also denounced former FBI Director James B. Comey’s public support of the organization. Trump and his allies view Comey as a political enemy for his role in overseeing parts of the investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election. The Justice Department indicted Comey last month on allegations that he lied to Congress, acting after career prosecutors had criticized the case as too weak to justify charges.
The ADL has also received criticism from the left, with critics saying the group too broadly labels criticism of Israel as antisemitism. More than a half-dozen conservative groups and people wrote a letter to the White House after Kirk’s killing, calling on the administration to stop federal agencies from using any SPLC data.
In a social media post Friday morning, Patel focused on the SPLC’s “hate map” — an interactive map that the group has used to track organizations across the country that it says are rooted in hateful ideologies, including groups opposed to gay rights, anti-government extremists and white nationalists.
“The Southern Poverty Law Center long ago abandoned civil rights work and turned into a partisan smear machine,” Patel wrote on social media. “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.”
The SPLC defended its work in a statement.
“The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has worked for more than 50 years to shine a light on the threat of hate, extremism and white supremacy,” it said. “We remain committed to exposing hate and extremism as we work to equip communities with knowledge and defend the rights and safety of marginalized people.”
Conservative groups have said that federal law enforcement during prior administrations relied too heavily on SPLC research. An FBI memo that was leaked in 2023 and was based in part on SPLC data asserted that far-right extremists could be drawn to Catholic groups. Republicans said the memo, which was ultimately withdrawn, showed bias against Christians.