A Texas resident is suing the left-wing organization Anti-Defamation League (ADL) for $25 million, aiming to hold it accountable for what he calls a smear campaign against him.
John Sabal, a disabled Navy veteran, Tarrant County resident, and founder of The Patriot Voice, says he was merely doing what any conservative organization would do: organizing events.
“We did a big one in Dallas in 2021 called the For God & Country Patriot Roundup, where we had great guests like General Flynn and Sidney Powell, and we also had Allen West, Louie Gohmert, some elected officials,” Sabal told *The Dallas Express*.
Sabal explained that during his second event in Las Vegas, the “For God & Country Patriot Double Down,” he learned that the ADL had placed him on its list of “Glossary of Extremism and Hate.”
According to the ADL, the glossary is a “database [that] provides an overview of many of the terms and individuals used by or associated with movements and groups that subscribe to and/or promote extremist or hateful ideologies.”
“And during that event, I was hosting more elected officials, people who were working on election integrity and stuff like that, and I found out during that timeframe that they had put me into their Glossary of Extremism and Hate because they didn’t like some of the things that I guess I was sharing or saying,” Sabal said.
“The way that I understand it, it’s basically where they put all of the people that they disagree with into a—like Hillary Clinton said, the basket of deplorables. That would be their basket of deplorables. The problem with that is that in that Glossary of Extremism and Hate, there’s mass murderers, terrorists, actual white supremacists, people that are very dangerous to society in multiple different ways. So clearly, they didn’t do their homework on me when they put me in there,” Sabal said.
Sabal believes he was added to the list because of his conservative activism and argues that media outlets such as Newsweek and Vice published defamatory pieces about him.
Sabal is not the only conservative figure targeted by the ADL. Prominent individuals and organizations, including Libs of TikTok and conservative news outlets like Infowars, have also been mentioned in the glossary.
Sabal claims that the ADL’s actions have financially harmed both him and his partner.
“We’ve both been impacted because of the financial aspect of things, right? And that’s the problem. See, there’s—the ADL has a lot of power over financial institutions. People don’t realize that. And just like they have a lot of power over social media, like ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt himself said, that they have people working at Twitter, Meta, Google, YouTube, Facebook, all of it. They’re all over the place,” Sabal said.
“I’ve been canceled by Square, Stripe, PayPal, Venmo, Cash App, you name it. I’ve been canceled by all of them likely because of what the ADL is doing,” Sabal said.
Sabal also claims the ADL works closely with government agencies, even providing training to organizations like the FBI.
He says he is currently the only person suing the ADL.
“I am, as far as I am aware, the only one who is in a legal situation against any of these NGOs. To my knowledge, the ADL has had some defamation cases, but some of them were thrown out. I know they had a recent one, some guy in Missouri, but it was thrown out. I think he was representing himself. But to my knowledge, mine is the only one that has made it to this point in the litigation,” Sabal said.
The Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Fort Worth Division Judge Reed O’Connor dismissed John Sabal’s claims of injurious falsehoods but upheld his defamation claims against the ADL. The court allowed Sabal’s allegations that the ADL defamed him by including him in its “Glossary of Extremism and Hate,” which implied he was a “dangerous, extremist threat, and even a criminal.” The judge also maintained Sabal’s defamation claim related to the ADL’s “Hate in the Lone Star State” report on similar grounds.
Sabal’s attorney, Warren Norred, told The Dallas Express that the ADL has even mentioned Sabal’s name during congressional testimonies.
“I’ve been going through, I think it’s about three gigabytes of emails in production, in preparing for trial in July. And it’s tremendous. So, more recently, at the end of last year, the ADL filed a motion for Summary Judgment. And that was the recent win, in that Judge O’Connor left intact two major claims. One is the Hate in The Lone Star State Report and the other one is the Glossary. So, the inclusion of that, and the problem there is they say, ‘This is not, we think, John’s a bad guy. We present this as a psychopedic type of fact. He’s an Anti-Semite. It’s not just our opinion, he just is.’ And that’s the real issue. You can say, I don’t like John because he doesn’t like liberal views, and I don’t like John because he mildly criticizes Israel,” Warren said.
“But you say, no, he is an Anti-Semite. We’ve done the research for you. We have an authoritative encyclopedia of all bad guys, and John’s in it. And that’s what the court said. That’s actionable. So, it doesn’t mean we’re going to win. It doesn’t mean that, all it means is that this is what’s queued up for trial is a lie. That’s where we are. So, we’re in preparation for trial,” Warren said.
Sabal, who was labeled an anti-semite, has attended churches and supported financial causes benefiting Israel and the Jewish community.
“When the ADL put me on the Glossary of Extremism and Hate, I was actively attending a church that teaches the Hebrew roots of the Bible and that sends a good portion of the received tithes and offerings to support the land of Israel and the Jewish people. I was a consistent financial supporter and believed in the causes that this church promoted. It is wildly irresponsible and negligent that the ADL put me on this Glossary without doing proper research on who I really am, and that is egregious in itself,” Sabal said.
Sabal hopes his case will encourage others to take action and hold organizations like the ADL accountable.
“They need to be held accountable. And it’s not just me. Like I said, I’m opening up the floodgates. It’s going to be—God knows how many people. But I would encourage anybody. I mean, it’s something that’s been seen throughout history in different countries, especially in communist countries. And it’s a scary thought that it’s happening in America,” Sabal said.
The Dallas Express reached out to the ADL but did not receive a response.
To help John you can donate using https://www.givesendgo.com/veteranfight
CARLOS TURCIOS 