FBI Cuts Ties With SPLC & ADL After Conservative Complaints

FBI Direc­tor Kash Patel says the bureau is cut­ting ties with two orga­ni­za­tions that for decades have tracked domes­tic extrem­ism and racial and reli­gious bias, a move that fol­lows com­plaints about the groups from some con­ser­v­a­tives and promi­nent allies of Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump. Patel said Fri­day that the FBI would sev­er its rela­tion­ship with the South­ern Pover­ty Law Cen­ter, assert­ing that the orga­ni­za­tion had been turned into a “par­ti­san smear machine” and crit­i­ciz­ing it for its use of a “hate map” that doc­u­ments alleged anti-gov­ern­ment and hate groups inside the Unit­ed States. A state­ment ear­li­er in the week from Patel said the FBI would end ties with the Anti-Defama­tion League, a promi­nent Jew­ish advo­ca­cy orga­ni­za­tion that fights anti­semitism. The announce­ments amount to a dra­mat­ic rethink­ing of long­stand­ing FBI part­ner­ships with promi­nent civ­il rights groups at a time when Patel is mov­ing rapid­ly to reshape the nation’s pre­mier fed­er­al law enforce­ment agency.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/fbi-antisemitism-patel-comey-kirk-f997bd60b92a07023c00cfbf6c4ed7e6

Key Points

• FBI Direc­tor Kash Patel announced the bureau would sev­er its rela­tion­ship with the South­ern Pover­ty Law Cen­ter and the Anti-Defama­tion League, orga­ni­za­tions that have pro­vid­ed research on hate crime and domes­tic extrem­ism for decades.
• The Anti-Defama­tion League announced this week that it is dis­con­tin­u­ing its Glos­sary of Extrem­ism because sev­er­al entries were out­dat­ed, and some were being inten­tion­al­ly mis­rep­re­sent­ed and misused.
• Patel post­ed on X that James Comey wrote love let­ters to the ADL and embed­ded FBI agents with them, call­ing it a group that ran dis­grace­ful oper­a­tions spy­ing on Americans.
• ADL CEO Jonathan Green­blatt stat­ed the orga­ni­za­tion has deep respect for the FBI and remains more com­mit­ted than ever to pro­tect­ing the Jew­ish peo­ple in light of an unprece­dent­ed surge of antisemitism.

The Global National Conservative Alliance: An Incubator for Rightwing Extremism

The Glob­al Nation­al Con­ser­v­a­tive Alliance rep­re­sents an ide­o­log­i­cal coali­tion unit­ing right-wing and far-right move­ments world­wide under prin­ci­ples of nation­al sov­er­eign­ty, cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty, and oppo­si­tion to glob­al insti­tu­tions. This grow­ing alliance has cre­at­ed fer­tile ground for dis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paigns, con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries, and iden­ti­ty-dri­ven fears that risk fur­ther polar­iz­ing soci­eties, under­min­ing demo­c­ra­t­ic norms, and empow­er­ing extrem­ist fac­tions in their pur­suit of cul­tur­al and polit­i­cal dominance.

The GNCA active­ly pro­motes right-wing extrem­ism through insti­tu­tion­al infra­struc­ture that legit­imizes and nor­mal­izes once-fringe ide­olo­gies. CPAC con­fer­ences have evolved from domes­tic Repub­li­can gath­er­ings into transna­tion­al sum­mits where extrem­ist views are tol­er­at­ed and main­stream con­ser­v­a­tive fig­ures min­gle with far-right activists. The Glob­al Project Against Hate and Extrem­ism doc­u­ment­ed how CPAC Hun­gary 2025 fea­tured white nation­al­ists, con­spir­a­cy the­o­rists, and extrem­ist par­ty lead­ers, includ­ing advo­cates of the racist “Great Replace­ment” the­o­ry and mem­bers of Ger­many’s AfD par­ty, offi­cial­ly des­ig­nat­ed as right-wing extrem­ist by Ger­man author­i­ties. NPR report­ing reveals these con­fer­ences demon­strate the grow­ing uni­ty of the glob­al far-right, with Trump admin­is­tra­tion offi­cials appear­ing along­side fig­ures who have used Nazi slo­gans and pro­mot­ed forced expul­sion of non-white peo­ple from Europe. This net­work­ing infra­struc­ture allows Euro­pean far-right lead­ers to strength­en ties with Amer­i­can con­ser­v­a­tives, cre­at­ing an ecosys­tem where extrem­ist ide­olo­gies gain main­stream legitimacy.

With­in the Unit­ed States, the MAGA move­ment has become the pri­ma­ry vehi­cle for GNCA influ­ence, with many Trump appointees attend­ing Nation­al Con­ser­vatism Con­fer­ences that bring togeth­er Euro­pean far-right lead­ers and Amer­i­can con­ser­v­a­tives. The alliance’s pro­mo­tion of extrem­ism extends beyond rhetoric into dan­ger­ous real-world con­se­quences, as evi­denced when Trump’s Direc­tor of Nation­al Intel­li­gence Tul­si Gab­bard’s con­spir­a­cy alle­ga­tions sparked a 1,100% surge in vio­lent threats against for­mer Pres­i­dent Oba­ma across far-right plat­forms, with users call­ing for exe­cu­tions and pub­lic hang­ings. Fig­ures like David Horowitz shaped the ide­o­log­i­cal envi­ron­ment enabling Trump-era nation­al con­ser­vatism through cam­paigns fram­ing minor­i­ty groups as exis­ten­tial threats, while MAGA-aligned plat­forms have ampli­fied con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries align­ing with Russ­ian and Chi­nese dis­in­for­ma­tion efforts.

The Chris­t­ian Sci­ence Mon­i­tor doc­u­ments how once-extrem­ist view­points pro­mot­ed by the GNCA are being nor­mal­ized as mod­er­ate par­ties adopt far-right poli­cies, spread­ing influ­ence even with­out for­mal pow­er. The Inter­na­tion­al Bar Asso­ci­a­tion warns that this nor­mal­iza­tion has enabled far-right par­ties to enter gov­ern­ment in sev­en EU mem­ber states, cre­at­ing efforts to erode demo­c­ra­t­ic checks and bal­ances with pro­found impli­ca­tions for the rule of law. Aca­d­e­m­ic research shows these move­ments share anti-immi­grant stances and oppo­si­tion to lib­er­al democ­ra­cy while work­ing with­in elec­toral sys­tems to dis­man­tle demo­c­ra­t­ic norms from with­in. This con­ver­gence of main­stream con­ser­vatism with extrem­ism, facil­i­tat­ed by the GNCA’s transna­tion­al infra­struc­ture con­nect­ing MAGA Repub­li­cans with Euro­pean far-right par­ties, pos­es an esca­lat­ing threat to demo­c­ra­t­ic insti­tu­tions across West­ern democracies.

Exter­nal References:
— CPAC Hun­gary to Fea­ture White Nation­al­ists, Extrem­ist Par­ty Fig­ures and Far-Right Activists — Glob­al Project Against Hate and Extremism
— Euro­pean CPACs show the grow­ing uni­ty of the glob­al far-right — NPR
— Extrem­ism on the Euro­pean far right tempts con­ser­v­a­tives — Chris­t­ian Sci­ence Monitor

Dis­claimer:
The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) uti­lizes AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing the gen­er­a­tion of sum­maries for news items, intro­duc­tions, key points, and, often, the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, all images are gen­er­at­ed using AI and are intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.