FBI’s new director Kash Patel has officially severed the agency’s ties with the Jewish advocacy group Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which roughly corresponds to the left-wing extremist organization Expo in Sweden.

The decision comes after ADL received harsh criticism for listing the murdered conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s organization as dangerous and “extremist”.

In recent weeks, the Jewish lobby group has faced intense criticism from tech billionaire Elon Musk and Republican politicians for its so-called “Glossary of Extremism and Hate” – a database where many conservative, nationalist and immigration-critical Americans were listed as alleged “extremists” or members of “hate groups”.

Particularly noteworthy was perhaps the inclusion of Turning Point USA (TPUSA), the conservative organization founded by Charlie Kirk, who was murdered nearly three weeks ago. TPUSA’s page on ADL’s website described the group as an organization with ties to “a range of right-wing extremists” and that had “generated support from anti-Muslim bigots, alt-lite activists and some corners of the white supremacist alt-right”.

After the massive criticism, ADL capitulated and deleted its entire “Glossary of Extremism and Hate” from the website on Tuesday evening.

“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 At the same time, an increasing number of entries in the Glossary were outdated. We also saw a number of entries intentionally misrepresented and misused”, the organization claimed in a statement.

The organization now claims to want to “explore new strategies and creative approaches to deliver our data and present our research more effectively” – a formulation that analysts interpret as an acknowledgment that the database was inaccurate and misleading.

FBI formally breaks all ties

The day after ADL deleted the database, FBI Director Kash Patel announced that the agency formally breaks all ties with the organization. He explained the decision with harsh criticism of his predecessor James Comey and his close cooperation with ADL.

James Comey wrote “love letters” to the ADL and embedded FBI agents with them – a group that ran disgraceful ops spying on Americans.

That era is OVER. This FBI won’t partner with political fronts masquerading as watchdogs. pic.twitter.com/R6IKpSTfuP

— FBI Director Kash Patel (@FBIDirectorKash) October 1, 2025

— 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 tells Fox News Digital.

— That era is finished. This FBI formally rejects Comey’s policies and any partnership with the ADL, he continues.

Elon Musk: ADL is a hate group

Elon Musk has been one of the harshest critics and called ADL “a hate group”. In posts on X, he claimed that the FBI took its definitions of hate groups from ADL, “which is why FBI was investigating Charlie Kirk and Turning Point, instead of his murderers”.

Republican Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna demanded that ADL explain its categorization of TPUSA.

“Seems to me like if they don’t agree with you, they will label you a ‘hate group'”, Luna stated on X.

The FBI was taking their “hate group” definitions from ADL, which is why FBI was investigating Charlie Kirk & Turning Point, instead of his murderers … https://t.co/xTAfSY8vqr

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 1, 2025

Comey’s “love letters” to ADL

The background to Patel’s criticism goes back to May 8, 2017, when then-FBI Director James Comey spoke at ADL’s national leadership conference in Washington. In a notable speech, Comey declared his and the FBI’s “love” for the Jewish lobby organization.

Comey began by referring to a 2014 speech that he called “a love letter to ADL” and continued: “Three years later I can say, from the perspective of the FBI, we’re still in love with you”.

He concluded his speech with the words: “Love, the FBI”.

This politicized behavior from an FBI director caused strong surprise among many at the time and was considered deeply inappropriate, but only now under Kash Patel’s leadership has the FBI formally distanced itself from Comey’s strange and explicit partisanship.

I gathered property records for the 19 different states that the @ADL has a regional office established.

The report reveals that in the state of Connecticut, the ADL shares an office space with the FBI.

They also share an office space with the United Nations in New York.

1/2 pic.twitter.com/W0oCvnCVxc

— Kyle – Undercover (@kyleisbased) September 6, 2023

ADL and Expo

The ADL has close ties to the Swedish intelligence group Expo, which announced in 2022 that the two organizations would continue working together.

— Far-right extremism has always been a transnational threat, today more than ever, said Expo’s CEO Daniel Poohl, in connection with presenting a joint report that targeted the National Socialist organization Nordic Resistance Movement (Nordiska Motståndsrörelsen).

— Collaborating across borders to counter this threat is crucial. We are pleased to have collaborated with ADL to produce this report and hope to work together in the future as well, he continued.

ADL was founded in 1913 by the Jewish fraternal organization B’nai B’rith with the stated purpose to “stop defamation against the Jewish people” in protest against the conviction and lynching of Leo Frank who raped and murdered a 13-year-old girl in Georgia, USA.

The organization is today one of the most prominent within the international Jewish advocacy movement. They have among other things become known for their hostile attitude toward ethnic rights for European ethnic groups – while openly supporting the state of Israel as a Jewish ethnostate.