The Anti-Defamation League was founded 111 years ago to combat anti-Semitism. But over the past century, its mission has moved considerably more leftward, as shown by its recent effort to attack conservatives.
According to The Daily Signal, the ADL’s thought police sought a literal law enforcement investigation into conservative commentators because of their stance on transgender ideology and activism.
The Daily Signal’s Oversight Project obtained public records that showed the ADL petitioned the Washington State Fusion Center, or WSFC, to investigate “online amplifiers of LGBTQ+ Hate.”
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The WSFC supports federal, state, tribal, regional, and local law enforcement agencies in counterterrorism activities.
In February 2023, the Daily Signal reported the ADL sent a WSFC analyst an email urging action against “White Supremacist Fight Clubs, Anti-LGBTQ+ Hate.”
The email references Islamic terrorism, violence by white supremacists, and “online amplifiers of LGBTQ+ Hate” who promoted “false narratives” and were “escalating harassment of LGBTQ+ individuals.”
The Daily Signal noted that the email to the WSFC closely tracked an ADL blog post that specifically identified Libs of TikTok founder Chaya Raichik, the Gays Against Groomers social media account run by Jaimee Michell, the conservative media outlet Blaze Media, journalist Christopher Rufo, and conservative commentator Matt Walsh.
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The ADL argued in the email that law enforcement should target them for the “vilification of drag shows” and “baseless claims of ‘child grooming’ by LGBTQ+ people.”
Their comments have “further endangered and isolated an already at-risk community,” the ADL argued.
“The growing online anti-LGBTQ+ bigotry puts LGBTQ+ individuals at greater risk of physical violence and harassment,” the group’s email said.
According to that actual blog post, the group noted, “ADL is advocating for government partners to strengthen laws against perpetrators of online hate, as well as consulting with law enforcement partners to act on online hate speech that incites violence and/or credible threats.”
Chris Loftis, communications director for the Washington State Patrol, which is a key partner in the WSFC, told Daily Signal that none of the conservatives named above are “currently” under investigation.
“We do not investigate anyone or anything ‘at the direction of the Anti-Defamation League,’” Loftis said. “We receive tips from a variety of sources and interested parties and we follow each to its logical conclusion to assess if any possible public safety threat actually exists.”
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Walsh told the Daily Signal, “I’m not surprised that the enemies of free speech and common sense are using this tactic but I do find it deeply concerning.”
“Democrats (and the ADL is just an activist arm of the Democrat Party of course) clearly want to use force to shut down speech that threatens their narrative,” Walsh added.
“We’ve been moving in that direction for some time. I expect that if Biden wins re-election we will start to see, in the next year or two, outspoken conservatives getting fined and arrested on the grounds of ‘hate speech,’ etc.”
Rufo told the Daily Signal, “The ADL is attempting to mobilize the government for the purposes of political persecution, putting our right to free speech at risk. The fact that the ADL would like the government to investigate critics of transgender ideology under ‘domestic terrorism’ provisions is outrageous.”
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“I will not back down to this intimidation campaign — rather, I will fight harder than ever,” Rufo added. “If counterterrorism agents come knocking, I will tell them to pound sand. This is still America, and we still have the right to free speech.”
Raichik noted to the Daily Signal that the ADL is veering down a “really dangerous road” by “criticizing someone or something means that you’re a criminal.”
“Their whole brand is deciding who is an extremist, who is a racist, who is transphobic, who is a bigot, and then all of the corporations follow them and take cues from them,” she said.
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