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EXCLUSIVE – FBI Director Kash Patel is cutting ties with the Anti-Defamation League that the bureau forged under its former boss James Comey.
“James Comey disgraced the FBI by writing ‘love letters’ to the ADL and embedding agents with an extreme group functioning like a terrorist organization and the disgraceful operation they ran spying on Americans. That was not law enforcement, it was activism dressed up as counterterrorism, and it put Americans in danger,” Patel told Fox News Digital.
“That era is finished. This FBI formally rejects Comey’s policies and any partnership with the ADL,” he added.
ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE RETIRES GLOSSARY OF EXTREMIST GROUPS AFTER BACKLASH FOR INCLUDING CHARLIE KIRK’S TPUSA
(Jonathan Ernst/Reuters; Jason Kempin/Getty Images for Politicon)
On May 8, 2017, Comey addressed the Anti-Defamation League National Leadership Summit in Washington, D.C. and declared his and the FBI’s “love” for the organization. He began by referencing a 2014 speech which he called a “love letter to the ADL,” adding, “Three years later I can say, from the perspective of the FBI, we’re still in love with you.”
“We are not only educating ourselves, we are working with the ADL to build bridges in the communities we serve,” Comey said in his 2017 speech.
“For more than 100 years, you have advocated for fairness and equality… And for all of that, we are grateful. As a law enforcement and national security agency, yes. But also as Americans. As humans,” Comey said.
He concluded his speech with the words, “Love, the FBI.”
Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kash Patel testifies before the House Judiciary Committee in the Rayburn House Office Building on September 17, 2025 in Washington, DC. Patel is facing questions from lawmakers for the second straight day following a contentious hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee where he was criticized for his handling of investigations into the assassination of political activist Charlie Kirk and the case related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
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The ADL has recently faced backlash from Elon Musk and Republican lawmakers for listing Turning Point USA (TPUSA), Charlie Kirk’s organization, as an extremist group. As a result, the group removed its entire “Glossary of Extremism and Hate” on Tuesday.
“With over 1,000 entries written over many years, the ADL Glossary of Extremism has served as a source of high-level information on a wide range of topics for years. At the same time, an increasing number of entries in the Glossary were outdated,” the ADL wrote on X regarding the glossary. “We also saw a number of entries intentionally misrepresented and misused.”
The organization also said that retiring the glossary would allow it “to explore new strategies and creative approaches to deliver our data and present our research more effectively.”
“It will keep us focused on ensuring we do what we do best: fighting antisemitism and hate in the most impactful ways possible.”
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The outrage comes nearly three weeks after Kirk was assassinated during an event at Utah Valley University.
“The FBI was taking their ‘hate group’ definitions from ADL, which is why FBI was investigating Charlie Kirk [and] Turning Point, instead of his murderers,” Musk wrote in a post on X. In a separate post, Musk referred to the ADL as “a hate group.”
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., said the organization needed to explain its categorization of TPUSA.
“Seems to me like if they don’t agree with you, they will label you a ‘hate group,’” Luna wrote on X.
A liberal college professor wrote a New York Times essay about the importance of him sponsoring a Turning Point USA group on campus, when other faculty refused. (ALEX WROBLEWSKI / Getty)
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TPUSA’s backgrounder page on the ADL website falls under the “Center of Extremism” tag and describes the conservative group as having ties to “a range of right-wing extremists and has generated support from anti-Muslim bigots, alt-lite activists and some corners of the white supremacist alt-right.”
Fox News Digital contacted the ADL for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
Fox News Digital’s Elizabeth Pritchett contributed to this report.
