FBI Cuts Ties With Southern Poverty Law Center After Elon Musk Attacks
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.”
