FBI cuts ties with two advocacy groups that track US extremism after rightwing backlash

FBI director Kash Patel said agency would sever ties with Southern Poverty Law Center and Anti-Defamation League

Kash Patel, the FBI director, says the agency is cutting ties with two organizations that for decades have tracked domestic extremism and racial and religious bias, a move that follows complaints about the groups from some conservatives and prominent allies of president Donald Trump.

Patel said on Friday that the FBI would sever its relationship with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), asserting that the organization had been turned into a partisan smear machine" and criticizing it for its use of a hate map" that documents alleged anti-government and hate groups inside the US. A statement earlier in the week from Patel said the FBI would end ties with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a prominent Jewish advocacy organization that fights antisemitism.