FBI Director Kash Patel has publicly severed the agency’s decades-long partnership with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), accusing the Jewish advocacy group of political bias and unauthorized surveillance of Americans.
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| FBI Director Kash Patel |
In a move that's sent shockwaves through law enforcement and civil rights circles, FBI Director Kash Patel has slammed the door on a decades-old alliance with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), branding the Jewish advocacy powerhouse a "political front masquerading as watchdogs" and accusing it of "disgraceful ops spying on Americans."
The announcement, dropped like a grenade on the eve of Yom Kippur via Patel's X post, has ignited a firestorm: conservatives cheering it as a purge of "woke" overreach, while critics decry it as a dangerous capitulation to far-right fury and all tied to the ghost of ex-FBI boss James Comey and the fresh grave of assassinated activist Charlie Kirk.
Patel's takedown was as blunt as it was personal. "James Comey wrote ‘love letters’ to the ADL and embedded FBI agents with them, a group that ran disgraceful ops spying on Americans," he thundered on X, racking up over 66,000 likes and 6.6 million views in days.
In a Fox News interview, he escalated: "That was not law enforcement; it was activism dressed up as counterterrorism, and it put Americans in danger. That era is finished."
Comey, the Trump nemesis indicted last week on obstruction charges and facing an October 9 arraignment, had indeed gushed over the ADL in 2014 and 2017 speeches, calling one a "love letter" and making their hate-crimes training mandatory for FBI recruits.
Patel's slash-and-burn? A clear swipe at his predecessor's legacy, amid Trump's broader FBI overhaul, including hundreds of staff buyouts on the same day.
But timing is everything in this drama. The split detonated just after the ADL, under fire from the right, yanked its "Glossary of Extremism and Hate," a sprawling database of over 1,000 entries on bigoted groups and ideologies.
At the eye of the storm: Turning Point USA (TPUSA), the youth conservative outfit founded by Kirk, gunned down on September 10 in a still-unsolved assassination.
The glossary had tagged TPUSA with a "history of bigoted statements" and links to white supremacists, a 2019 backgrounder even accused it of peddling "Christian nationalism."
TPUSA fired back, calling the ADL a "pro-Antifa, anti-Christian hate group."
ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt defended retiring the list as pruning "outdated" entries amid "intentional misrepresentation," insisting, "We are not anti-Christian, many of our staff and supporters are Christian."
Enter the outrage machine. Elon Musk, X's billionaire overlord and Trump whisperer, fanned the flames pre-announcement: "The ADL hates Christians, therefore it is a hate group," he posted, alleging the FBI used ADL labels to hound Kirk during the Trump-Russia probe.
Donald Trump Jr. dubbed the TPUSA entry "disgraceful," while Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) blasted the ADL for "smearing patriotic Americans and weaponizing law enforcement."
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) floated subpoenaing Greenblatt, thundering, "America First is not hate speech."
X lit up with victory laps—Nick Sortor's post alone snagged 64,000 likes: "That era is OVER."
Libs of TikTok crowed, "The ADL is nothing more than a propaganda arm for the Democratic Party." Infowars hailed it a "MASSIVE VICTORY."
The ADL, undeterred, struck a measured tone: "We have deep respect for the FBI and law enforcement," their statement read, vowing to soldier on against an "unprecedented surge" in antisemitism.
But left-leaning outlets weren't buying the optics. Even The Independent called it an "unusual attack" on an antisemitism fighter, ironic, given the Trump admin's campus crackdowns on pro-Palestine protests.
Politico noted the ADL's intel-sharing, hundreds of extremist tips yearly, now in jeopardy, potentially hobbling hate-crime probes.
Rewind to the roots: This FBI-ADL bromance bloomed in the 1940s, blossoming into joint training manuals and intel swaps by Comey's era. Even the FBI's Denver office dubbed ADL staff "invaluable partners" last year, until that press release vanished post-Patel. Now, as Patel's "review of external partnerships" rolls on, the bureau eyes a leaner, "independent" future, free of what he sees as biased watchdogs.
Is this a righteous reckoning or a partisan purge? With Comey's court date looming and Kirk's killers still at large, the fallout could redefine how America fights hate or weaponizes it. One thing's clear: In Trump's Washington, old flames die hard, and the ADL's just been ghosted.
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