FBI Director Kash Patel called the Anti-Defamation League “an extreme group functioning like a terrorist organization,” saying in a Wednesday announcement that the FBI has cut all formal ties with the anti-hate group. 

Patel slammed James Comey, the former FBI director now facing federal charges for allegedly lying to Congress in 2020, for speaking at an ADL conference in 2014 and 2017.

“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,” Patel told Fox News. “That was not law enforcement, it was activism dressed up as counterterrorism, and it put Americans in danger.” 

The ADL’s website says the organization “works closely with federal, state and local law enforcement to assist them in protecting communities from extremism and hate.” The Bureau’s Denver field office gave a leadership award to a senior ADL official last year, calling the ADL “invaluable partners for the FBI in Denver.” The press release announcing that award has since been deleted from the FBI’s website. 

“That era is finished,” Patel said Wednesday. “This FBI formally rejects Comey’s policies and any partnership with the ADL.”

In recent days, the ADL came under fire from Elon Musk, Donald Trump Jr. and other far-right activists because of a post on its website that outlined ties between extremists and Turning Point USA, the activist group founded by Charlie Kirk, the conservative influencer who was killed at a speaking engagement in Utah last month. Facing pressure from these leading voices on the right, the ADL this week deleted its online Glossary of Extremism and Hate.

“ADL has deep respect for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and law enforcement officers at all levels across the country who work tirelessly every single day to protect all Americans regardless of their ancestry, religion, ethnicity, faith, political affiliation or any other point of difference,” the group said in a statement Wednesday.

“In light of an unprecedented surge of antisemitism, we remain more committed than ever to our core purpose to protect the Jewish people.”

FBI Director Kash Patel said on Tuesday that federal investigators were looking into the funding sources for left-wing groups behind organized protest movements that have resulted in rioting on city streets and civil rights violations on college campuses. 

Patel made the comments while appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee for a marathon oversight hearing, where he faced dozens of questions from Democrats and Republicans about the assassination of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk last week. 

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) urged Patel to investigate the financing of far-left groups that the Texas senator said may have influenced the suspected shooter and supported protests in recent years that saw instances of rioting or other illegal activity.

“As I’ve always said, Senator, money doesn’t lie. We’ve been following the money, and that’s what we’re doing, issuing a lawful process to organizations involved with criminal activity because the money has got to come from somewhere,” Patel told Cruz. 

Cruz stressed his belief that the bankrolling of these political efforts has led to the riots in major cities and the surge of campus antisemitism in recent years, and the importance of identifying the individuals and organizations responsible.

“I want to encourage you in the course of this investigation, absolutely go after anyone who aided and abetted, but I want to more broadly encourage you: follow the money. The violence we are seeing is not purely organic. There is, I believe, significant money that is spreading dissension, that is spreading violence,” Cruz said. 

“Both the Antifa and Black Lives Matter riots of a couple of years ago, and the pro-open borders riots in Los Angeles and other cities of this past year, I believe there was significant money behind those riots. I’m not the only person who noticed at the antisemitic protests and violent protests on college campuses last year, that many of the tents all matched,” he added.

Cruz, who introduced legislation in July to add rioting to the list of predicate offenses under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act — which targets organized crime — added that he believes the money “should be tracked and prosecuted under RICO.”

Following a series of questions about the suspect’s motive in killing Kirk and reports that others had prior knowledge of the suspect’s plans, Cruz urged Patel to probe the funding sources of Antifa specifically in connection with the shooting, and called on the Trump administration to designate the far-left political movement as a terrorist organization. 

“I would encourage the administration to designate Antifa as a terrorist organization and go systematically after Antifa. They’ve committed acts of violence all over the country, and the shell casings [found with the weapon used to kill Kirk] have multiple references to slogans that Antifa has popularized. I believe there is considerable money funding it,” Cruz said. 

The Texas senator noted in the context of some online celebration of Kirk’s killing that while free speech remains protected under the First Amendment, violent activity does not. 

“Nazis and Klansmen can march in the streets and even though their speeches are bigoted and horrible and racist, the First Amendment protects it. Conduct, however, is not protected by the First Amendment, particularly conduct that is violent,” Cruz said. “Violent conduct — that is threatening to others, that is harassing others, that is injuring or in this case murdering others — is most assuredly not protected by the First Amendment, and so I would encourage you and the FBI to focus on conduct. Now, speech can direct, speech can guide you to those who engaged in conduct.”

Earlier in the hearing, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Patel discussed their shared view that social media is “one of the instruments radicalizing America and inciting violence” and their support for repealing Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the legal provision that shields social media platforms from legal liability for the content their users post.

“After the assassination of Charlie Kirk, there seems to be one refrain from everybody, and that’s about the effect of social media,” Graham said. “These companies are taking content that makes you sick, that could get you killed, get you poisoned, and there’s nothing we can do about it under our law … because of Section 230. If your child is being sexually groomed online or bullied online, and you go to the social media company and ask them to take it down [and if] they refuse, you have like zero rights.”

“My belief is based on the data, and the data shows that social media is wildly out of control when it comes to radicalizing,” Patel said. 

Graham went on to press Patel about how he would characterize “the state of threats to our homeland by foreign terrorist groups,” which the latter replied to by pointing out that such organizations were working to adapt technologically.

“Foreign terrorist organizations have adapted and started utilizing online platforms and so has the FBI. While they are adapting [and] expanding how they harm our country, we have as well. They have not stopped. There’s been a resurgence [of terrorist threats] in places like West Africa and elsewhere of foreign terrorist organizations and also the newly emboldened drug trafficking organizations in Mexico,” Patel said, adding that addressing this surge was “going to take a whole-of-government approach.”

Patel responded affirmatively when asked if his previous comment could apply to Hezbollah, and concurred with Graham’s assessment that “Hezbollah is involved in not only terrorism but narcoterrorism.”

At another point in the hearing, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) asked Patel if Jeffrey Epstein was “an intelligence asset for the U.S. government or a foreign government.” Online conspiracy theories have alleged, without evidence, that Epstein worked for the Mossad.

“I can only speak to the FBI, as the director of the FBI, and Mr. Epstein was not a source for the FBI,” Patel replied, later vowing to provide Congress with “all records I am legally permitted to do so under the court orders.”

Kash Patel, President Donald Trump’s nominee to be FBI director, vowed to make counterterrorism a priority under his leadership during his confirmation hearing on Thursday, telling senators that the threat of a major terrorist attack is “as high as I’ve ever seen it.”

Patel, a Trump loyalist and longtime Republican operative, referenced his concerns about terrorism repeatedly in his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, saying in his opening statement that two terrorist attacks in New Orleans and Las Vegas on New Year’s Day “serve as a stark reminder that our national security is at threat, both internally and externally.”

Patel also touted his experience as a counterterrorism prosecutor in the Justice Department’s National Security Division during the Obama administration and senior director of counterterrorism at the National Security Council in Trump’s first term.

Asked by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) what the bureau should be doing to prevent future terrorist attacks, Patel replied, “Working hand in glove with our intelligence community and obtaining information that directly relates to the FBI’s criminal mandate on an intelligence basis.”

“Thwarting and prosecuting and stopping any terrorist attacks here and any homegrown activities abroad that are directed at the United States of America, along with countermanding the CCP espionage rings in this country, which dovetail with the foreign terrorist organization activity,” he told Cruz. 

Patel later told Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) that the “top areas of concern” affecting national security “have remained unchanged and the threat dynamic has increased.” Among those areas of concerns were “thwarting terrorist activities and terrorist attacks here and overseas against our citizens and our allies,” “CCP espionage, which is running rampant these last five years through our country including our cyber-infrastructure and our agricultural properties” and “taking on Iran, the No. 1 state-sponsor of terror, and any other adversary that wishes to harm America.”

Speaking to Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) about returning the FBI to its “core mission” of fighting crime, Patel said that he planned to prioritize the issue of narcotics trafficking, something he described as key to handling both violent crime and national security. 

“Whether we prioritize going after violent crime and national security, we cannot defend against either of those successfully unless we go after the underlying criminal nexus there. Whether it’s human trafficking, whether it’s terrorism, whether it’s opioids and whether it’s just outright gang violence, the intersection there is narcot trafficking,” Patel said.”It is the underlying underbelly, the evil, illegal underbelly of all those operations. We have not prioritized, in my opinion, as a law enforcement agency, the collective power we can rain down on criminal narcot trafficking networks.”

Patel added that he’d like to work with Pam Bondi, Trump’s nominee for attorney general, on setting up a task force to share information on criminal networks with local law enforcement.

“I believe if we are successful in actually crippling the narcot trafficking networks we will see a decrease, monumental, in violent crime and at the same time protect American national security,” he said.

Patel faced heavy criticism from Democrats on the committee about his litany of past public comments vowing to rid the FBI of Trump’s enemies and support for those convicted for their involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot and other conspiracy theories. Patel defended himself by walking back some prior statements or arguing they were being presented out of context. 

Following a difficult set of questioning by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), the top Democrat on the committee, Patel defended his appearances on programs hosted by fringe political figures — including at least one antisemitic conspiracy theorist and Holocaust denier — arguing he was not associated with those individuals by merely going on their shows to “take on people who are putting on conspiratorial theories and to devow them of their false impressions.”

“I don’t believe I’m guilty by association and I certainly don’t believe that an individual who is the first minority to serve as the deputy director of national intelligence for this country is a racist in any way,” Patel said. “And I detest any conjecture to the contrary.”

Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) told Patel that he expected him to not operate from a place of vengeance and instructed him to uplift those at the bureau doing honest, apolitical work in his role as the nation’s chief law enforcement agent. 

Kennedy pointed to the old adage that, “two wrongs don’t make a right, but they do make it even,” noting that he thought the saying was misguided and “the wrong approach” to “reforming the FBI and the Justice Department.”

“There’s some good people at the FBI, and there’s been and may still be some bad people there,” Kennedy said. “You’ve got to find out who the bad people are and get rid of them in accordance with due process and the rule of law. And then you’ve got to lift up the good people. Don’t go over there and burn that place down. Go over there and make it better.”

The subject of Section 702 of the Foreign Surveillance Act came up repeatedly, with members on both sides of the aisle seeking clarity on Patel’s position on recent reforms and the need for additional changes. Section 702 of the Foreign Surveillance Act provides the government with surveillance authorities lawmakers describe as essential to the U.S. intelligence apparatus, though some on the far-right have opposed it as an unconstitutional overreach and have claimed it was misused to target Trump allies. Lawmakers will need to re-authorize the powers next year.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) discussed the matter at length with Patel during the hearing, defending the law as a necessary tool for the intelligence community, something Patel concurred with. 

“The issue for me is not with FISA and 702. The issue has been those that have been in government service and abused it in the past. So we must work with Congress to provide the protections necessary for American citizens,” Patel said.

He said he did not believe warrants should be required to utilize those authorities.

“Dealing with these matters, including hostage rescue operations in real-time, which we use FISA collection to find and save American hostages,” he added. “Having a warrant requirement to go through that information in real time is just not comportive with the requirement to protect American citizenry. I’m all open to working with Congress on finding a better way forward but right now, these improvements that you’ve made go a long way.”