Mediaite
Fri, October 3, 2025
Kash Patel
FBI Director Kash Patel announced on Friday that the agency has cut ties with the Southern Poverty Law Center. The announcement came just days after the FBI also severed its connections to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
“The Southern Poverty Law Center long ago abandoned civil rights work and turned into a partisan smear machine,” Patel wrote on X about the civil rights watchdog group. “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 connection between the group and the FBI is “officially terminated,” Patel made clear.
“In April, during our Anti-Christian Bias Panel, I made it clear that the FBI will never rely on politicized or agenda-driven intelligence from outside groups — and certainly not from the SPLC,” he wrote. “Under this FBI, all ties with the SPLC have officially been terminated.”
Patel accusing the SPLC of having “inspired violence” came just a day after X owner and MAGA-friendly billionaire Elon Musk accused the group of inciting the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk after he was included in a “hate watch” newsletter.
Patel announced earlier this week that the FBI had cut ties with the ADL — which Musk is also highly critical of — following the group receiving backlash over Kirk’s Turning Point USA being included in a 2017 report on a Glossary of Extremism and Hate that the group has since taken down. Musk threatened to sue the ADL in the past, claiming the group’s reports of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial on his platform hurt his ad revenue.
Former FBI Director James Comey had in the past described the FBI as “in love” 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,” Patel announced. “That era is OVER. This FBI won’t partner with political fronts masquerading as watchdogs.”
Reuters
Fri, October 3, 2025
FILE PHOTO: FBI Director Kash Patel gestures as he testifies before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., September 16, 2025. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File PhotoMore
(Reuters) -The FBI has cut ties with the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights organization that tracks extremist groups, after conservatives criticized the nonprofit for including slain right-wing activist Charlie Kirk's organization on its list of hate groups.
In a post on X on Friday, FBI Director Kash Patel accused the SPLC of turning into a "partisan smear machine" rather than a civil rights advocate and said his agency had severed all ties.
"Their so-called 'hate map' has been used to defame mainstream Americans and even inspired violence," Patel said, without offering details.
The SPLC did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The FBI also did not immediately respond to a request for more details, including Patel's specific allegations, but a Justice Department official who was unauthorized to speak on the record said the working relationship had already been winding down for months.
The SPLC's "Hate Map" lists nearly 1,400 groups, including Kirk's Arizona-based Turning Point USA. The SPLC describes the conservative youth organization as an "anti-government" group.
Patel's decision came two days after he announced that the FBI would end all partnerships with the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish organization that tracks antisemitism. The ADL had included Turning Point in a "Glossary of Extremism and Hate" before deleting the entire list from its website after criticism from billionaire Elon Musk and other conservatives.
Kirk was assassinated last month during an appearance at a Utah college campus, deepening fears about rising U.S. political violence and prompting President Donald Trump to escalate his rhetoric against what he calls the "radical left."
The 22-year-old suspect in the case, Tyler Robinson, told a roommate he acted due to Kirk's "hatred," prosecutors have said. Authorities have said they believe Robinson acted alone.
In a post on X on Thursday noting that Kirk was briefly mentioned in an SPLC newsletter the day before his death, Musk accused SPLC of being "guilty" of inciting Kirk's murder, without providing evidence.
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