President Donald Trump pled his case that the 2020 presidential election should “be permanently wiped from books” if fraud charges against the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) are proven to be true.
Trump called SPLC “one of the greatest political scams in American History” in a post on Truth Social early Friday.
“The Southern Poverty Law Center, one of the greatest political scams in American History, has been charged with FRAUD. This is another Democrat Hoax, along with Act Blue, and many others,” the president wrote. “If it is true, the 2020 Presidential Election should be permanently wiped from the books and be of no further force or effect!”
The president then shared a post by Elon Musk about the allegations against SPLC.
Trump’s remarks come after Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced an indictment against the Alabama-based non-profit. Blanche accused SPLC of financial misconduct linked to its use of informants embedded within extremist groups.
Prosecutors allege the organization gave millions of dollars to individuals connected to groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazi networks. Prosecutors argued the organization misled donors about how funds would be used.
The indictment includes multiple counts of wire fraud, bank fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
In one instance, the indictment alleges the SPLC sent more than $270,000 to an individual who helped plan and attended the deadly white nationalist Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. The indictment did not detail the purpose of the payments or the nature of the work carried out for the organization.
“The SPLC is a non-profit entity that purports to fight white supremacy and racial hatred by reporting on extremist groups and conducting research to inform law enforcement groups with the goal of dismantling these groups,” Blanche said earlier this week.
“The SPLC was not dismantling these groups. It was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred,” he added
In a video statement, Bryan Fair, the SPLC’s interim leader, said the organization’s record of “fighting white supremacy and various forms of injustice” for 55 years, adding that he was “unsurprised to be the latest organization targeted by this administration.”
He added that the SPLC no longer uses paid informants, but had previously shared intelligence gathered through them with law enforcement, including police and the FBI.
