The FBI is severing ties with the Anti-Defamation League for designating Turning Point USA as an extremist group, a listing that came long before the assassination of the late conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
FBI director Kash Patel announced the change Wednesday after intense conservative backlash towards the ADL’s classification of TPUSA in the wake of Kirk’s death.
“James Comey wrote ‘love letters’ to the ADL and embedded FBI agents with them – a group that ran disgraceful ops spying on Americans,” Patel said on social media.
“That era is OVER. This FBI won’t partner with political fronts masquerading as watchdogs.”
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
Fox News first reported on Patel’s announcement.
The ADL has faced intense backlash from online conservatives, including billionaire Elon Musk, for putting Turning Point USA in its extremism glossary.
The ADL’s page described Turning Point USA as a conservative group that has 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.”
Its entry on Turning Point USA listed controversial statements linked to the activist group and accused Kirk of promoting “Christian nationalism.” Kirk was an outspoken Christian throughout his life and regularly discussed the importance of his faith to his mission.
In response to the online backlash, the ADL deleted its “Glossary of Extremism and Hate” and admitted some of its entries were outdated.
“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 At the same time, an increasing number of entries in the Glossary were outdated.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 ADL said in a statement.
“At ADL, we always are looking for how we can and should do things better. That’s why we are moving to retire the Glossary effectively immediately.”
Although the ADL’s primary focus is antisemitism, the group spent much of the past decade advocating for other liberal causes and attacking conservative opponents. It has consistently opposed President Trump and advocated for online censorship under the guise of “hate speech.” The ADL was a leading liberal opponent of Musk’s moves to promote free speech on X, formerly known as Twitter, and supported advertiser boycotts against Musk.
Musk recently accused the ADL of being a “hate group” because of its claims about Turning Point USA and Kirk.
“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 said in another post, referring to the FBI’s expansive investigation of Trump and dozens of GOP groups.
Representative Anna Paulina Luna (R., Fla.) also criticized the ADL’s position on Kirk and TPUSA.
“Seems to me like if they don’t agree with you, they will label you a ‘hate group,'” Luna said. She shared a screenshot of the ADL’s page and said it had “some explaining to do.”
The ADL’s support for Israel and advocacy against campus antisemitism have made it a target of leftist criticism in recent years. But it remains a prominent left-wing Jewish organization.
Former FBI Director James Comey, who is being prosecuted by Trump’s Department of Justice, declared the FBI’s “love” for the ADL during a May 2017 speech given to the organization. Before that, he gave a speech in 2014 that he called a “love letter” to the organization.
“We are not only educating ourselves, we are working with the ADL to build bridges in the communities we serve,” Comey said in the 2017 speech.
Trump fired Comey early in his first term because of the intelligence community’s role in promoting unfounded claims of collusion between Trump and Russia. Comey has become an anti-Trump political commentator and recently drew backlash for a since-deleted Instagram post that some conservatives likened to a call for violence against the president.