BREAKING: FBI cuts ties with Southern Poverty Law Center

Patel told the Daily Signal, "The Southern Poverty Law Center long ago abandoned civil rights work and turned into a partisan smear machine. Their so-called hate map has been used to defame mainstream Americans and even inspired violence." He added, "That disgraceful record makes them unfit for any FBI partnership." The FBI said that it does not engage in contact or information sharing with the SPLC, nor does it have any intelligence products from the organization.

Patel continued, "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. Under this FBI, all ties with the SPLC have officially been terminated."

On Wednesday, Patel said that his bureau was severing ties with the ADL. Patel said for FBI Director 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." He added, "That era is finished. This FBI formally rejects Comey’s policies and any partnership with the ADL."

Just months before the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, the SPLC added the conservative organization to its 2024 "Year in Hate and Extremism" report, labeling Turning Point as an "anti-government extremist group."

Patel has criticized the SPLC, saying on an April panel on anti-Christian bias, Patel criticized the Biden administration’s FBI over its memo out of its Virginia office that urged agents to develop sources within traditional Catholic churches to target "Radical Traditional Catholic hate groups." The Biden FBI cited the SPLC.

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