FBI cuts ties with Anti-Defamation League amid conservative backlash

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the top anti-Semitism watchdog and Jewish advocacy organization, has been accused of spying on conservatives by the top law enforcement agency in the United States.

Following the release of the assassinated right-wing activist Charlie Kirk in the ADL’s “Glossary of Extremism and Hate,” prominent conservative influencers, including Elon Musk, made the announcement on Wednesday.

Patel cited the ADL’s connections to former FBI Director James Comey, a vocal critic of US President Donald Trump, who was charged with obstruction and lying to the US Congress last week.

Patel claimed that Comey had sent “love letters” to ADL and ADL-affiliated agents, who he claimed had accused of conducting “disgraceful ops spying on Americans.”

In a social media post, Patel stated, “This FBI won’t work with political organizations that masquerade as watchdogs.”

Patel did not go further or provide supporting proof for his assertions.

Comey claimed that the FBI had collaborated with the advocacy group to create a “Hate Crimes Training Manual” and that the organization had mandated personnel’s training for the organization’s Law Enforcement and Society in a 2014 speech to the ADL’s National Leadership Summit.

Comey characterized the ADL’s training as “eye-opening and insightful,” and its investigation of hate crimes as “essential.”

He said, “If this sounds a bit like an ADL love letter, it is,” and that is exactly so.

In response to the ADL’s decision to remove more than 1, 000 allegedly extremist entries from its website, Patel did not mention Kirk in his statement, which came just one day after the late activist’s death was referenced in his statement.

The ADL claimed it made the decision because many of the terms were “intentionally misrepresented and misused” and a number of entries were “intentionally misrepresented and misused.”

The ADL claimed that Kirk promoted “Christian nationalism” and “numerous conspiracy theories about election fraud and Covid-19 and has demonized the transgender community” in a since-deleted article on Kirk and his youth organization Turning Point USA (TPUSA).

White nationalists, according to the entry, were also present at TPUSA events, claiming that it attracted racists, that its representatives had “bigoted remarks” about minority groups and the LGBTQ community, and that the group’s representatives had “acquired white supremacist ideology.”

While still alive, Kirk himself vehemently criticised the ADL, calling it a “hate group that wears a religious mask to justify stoking hatred of the left’s enemies.”

The ADL expressed “deep respect” for the FBI and all law enforcement officials who work to protect Americans regardless of their ancestry, religion, ethnicity, faith, or political affiliation in a statement following Patel’s remarks on Wednesday.