Trump Admin Drops Hammer On Liberal Organization That Has Long Targeted Conservative Groups

The U.S. Department of Justice announced an indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center, accusing the group of covertly directing millions to individuals tied to white supremacist and other extremist organizations.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said SPLC used paid operatives within extremist circles to incite and intensify racial tensions, arguing the group fostered the very threats it claimed to fight. A federal grand jury in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama brought 11 charges against the nonprofit, including six counts of wire fraud, four counts of bank fraud, and one count of money laundering.

Blanche told reporters that the organization paid at least $3 million between 2014 and 2023 to eight individuals, including people linked to the Ku Klux Klan and U.S.-based Nazi groups.

“As the indictment describes, the SPLC was not dismantling these groups, it was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred,” Blanche said at a news conference Tuesday.

SPLC CEO Bryan Fair said investigators appear to be examining the SPLC’s prior use of confidential informants to gather intelligence on violent extremist groups, according to the Associated Press. Fair said the organization deployed informants to monitor credible threats and, in some cases, shared that information with local and federal law enforcement. Fair defended the program, saying the SPLC operated in an era marked by violent attacks and systemic failures to protect civil rights activists.

“When we began working with informants, we were living in the shadow of the height of the Civil Rights Movement, which had seen bombings at churches, state-sponsored violence against demonstrators, and the murders of activists that went unanswered by the justice system,” Fair said. “There is no question that what we learned from informants saved lives.”