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FBI Director Kash Patel announced on Friday the agency has “terminated” all ties with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) — a left-leaning nonprofit organization known for its “Hate Map” and designating groups it views as extremist, including Turning Point USA.
The nonprofit, founded in 1971, originally focused on civil rights legal advocacy. However, in recent years, critics claim it has become highly partisan, targeting conservatives and faith-based organizations alongside actual hate groups.
“The Southern Poverty Law Center long ago abandoned civil rights work and turned into a partisan smear machine,” Patel wrote in an announcement on X. “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 FBI announced on Friday it is cutting all ties with the Southern Poverty Law Center, a left-leaning nonprofit organization targeting what it believes are “hate” groups. (Barry Lewis/InPictures)
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Patel said during the FBI’s Anti-Christian Bias Panel in April, he made it clear that the agency will “never rely on politicized or agenda-driven intelligence from outside groups—and certainly not from the SPLC.”
The director’s announcement comes less than a month after Turning Point USA (TPUSA) founder Charlie Kirk was assassinated while speaking at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10, killing the 31-year-old father of two.
In May, the SPLC listed TPUSA in its “hate and extremism” report, calling it a “hard-right organization with links to Southern Poverty Law Center-identified hard-right extremists.”
People raise placards reading “This is our Turning Point” during a memorial service for slain conservative commentator Charlie Kirk at State Farm Stadium, in Glendale, Ariz., Sept. 21. (Brian Snyder/Reuters)
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“Turning Point USA’s primary strategy is sowing and exploiting fear that white Christian supremacy is under attack by nefarious actors, including immigrants, the LGBTQ+ community and civil rights activists,” the SPLC wrote in a May 22 case study. “… Turning Point USA’s effort to sow fear and division to enforce social hierarchies rooted in supremacism is emblematic of the hard right’s broader political project to destroy our foundational democratic principles and institutions.”
On Thursday, TPUSA spokesman Andrew Kolvet shared one of Kirk’s X posts from Feb. 10, 2023, where he described the SPLC as a hate group, saying, “There’s a Charlie tweet for everything.”
“What’s happening right now to the ADL and SPLC is critically important and deadly serious,” Kolvet wrote in another post Thursday, sharing a photo of the May SPLC case study. “They are both part of an ecosystem leveraged by radical left vigilantes to dehumanize conservatives and stoke political violence. They provide the sheen of legitimacy for the left’s violent foot soldiers.”
Kirk also posted about the topic on May 25, denouncing the SPLC for comparing TPUSA to extremist groups like the KKK, and arguing the SPLC is a corrupt, money-driven organization that raises funds by stoking fear.
“Their game plan? Scare financial institutions into debanking us, pressure schools to cancel us, and demonize us so some unhinged lunatic feels justified targeting us,” Kirk wrote. “Remember the Family Research Council? An SPLC-inspired gunman went after them. They’d love nothing more than to see TPUSA in the crosshairs. … Being on their list is a badge of honor. It means they’re terrified that we’re so effective. Keep crying, SPLC—America’s done with your scam.”
Turning Point USA (TPUSA) spokesman Andrew Kolvet, a longtime friend of Charlie Kirk, sounded off on the SPLC smear on X. (Patrick Fallon via Getty Images)
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Kolvet highlighted that on Sept. 9, the day before Kirk’s murder, the SPLC published a newsletter “directly attacking Charlie.”
“Did these contribute to the assassin’s motive?” Kolvet wrote Thursday. “We may never know, but the swirl of extremist propaganda certainly played a role. The SPLC has been credibly accused of corruption, mishandling of donations, union-busting, and covering up of sexual assault by senior leadership, all while sitting on nearly $1 billion in reserves and being based in red Alabama. These are legitimate predicates for investigation. Those should happen immediately.
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“The influence of the ADL and SPLC must be completely purged from any serious company, org, and agency. Companies like PayPal which still rely on these disgraced orgs should be the focus of future boycotts if they insist on continuing their association.”
Elon Musk reacted to Kolvet’s post with a simple, “Exactly.”
Patel’s announcement about the FBI cutting ties with the SPLC came just hours after Kolvet’s post.
