In a shocking and controversial move, the Justice Department announced Tuesday that it was charging a major anti-extremist organization with funneling money to the very extremists that the organization opposes. The charges against the Southern Poverty Law Center stem from payments made to confidential informants within white supremacist organizations, with defenders of the watchdog organization arguing that these payments are standard practice for fighting against such extremist groups.
Justice Department accuses SPLC of secretly supporting extremists
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced in a Tuesday afternoon news conference, “A few minutes ago, in the Middle District of Alabama, a grand jury returned an 11-count indictment charging the Southern Poverty Law Center with six counts of wire fraud, four counts of bank fraud, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.”
Standing next to FBI Director Kash Patel, Blanche explained the allegation, “According to the charges in the indictment, the SPLC is a nonprofit 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.”
He continued, “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.”
The indictment centers on more than $3 million worth of payments the SPLC made between 2014 and 2023 to “field sources” within violent extremist organizations. It claims the SPLC funneled money to these individuals while concealing the payments from the public and from donors: “Unbeknownst to donors, some of their donated money was being used to fund the leaders and organizers of racist groups, including the Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Nation and the National Alliance.” The Justice Department alleges that “the SPLC’s paid informants (“field sources”) engaged in the active promotion of racist groups at the same time that the SPLC was denouncing the same groups on its website.”
The indictment represents a major change in the SPLC’s relationship with the Department of Justice, as the nonprofit organization has traditionally cooperated with and shared information with the DOJ and other law enforcement agencies to fight extremist organizations.
SPLC leader defends organization and accuses government of being ‘weaponized’
Before the Justice Department’s announcement, SPLC CEO Bryan Fair posted a video calling out the Trump administration for its investigation of the organization. Fair touted the organization’s long history of “fighting white supremacy and various forms of injustice to create a multi-racial democracy where we can all live and thrive.” Fair stated, “We are therefore unsurprised to be the latest organization to be targeted by this administration. They have made no secret of who they want to protect and who they want to destroy.”
Fair detailed previous moves against the organization.
“In October, FBI Director Kash Patel announced the bureau would sever its ties with the SPLC, and in December, House Republicans held a hearing to accuse us of being partisan and profitable.”
Fair also defended the organization’s “prior use of paid confidential informants to gather credible intelligence on extremely violent groups” as a discontinued but previously necessary tactic. Fair noted that the SPLC’s offices were firebombed in 1983 and that the organization has received various threats over the years. He also argued that the use of informants was crucial to gather information, much of which the SPLC shared with the FBI and other law enforcement agencies, while generally not sharing its use of informants to protect the safety of these individuals who “risked their lives to infiltrate and inform on the activities of our nation’s most radical and violent extremist groups.” Fair was adamant that his organization was being targeted as part of a political agenda. “Today, the federal government has been weaponized to dismantle the rights of our nation’s most vulnerable people and any organization like ours that tries to stand in the breach,” he said in the video.
The indictment of the SPLC comes at a time when the Trump administration has used the power of the law to target individuals and groups not aligned with the president’s agenda and seemingly to enact retribution against Trump’s political foes. The DOJ alleges that the SPLC has been fraudulently supporting white supremacists in violation of its public statements and its donors’ interests. The SPLC, meanwhile, maintains that its work has been consistent with its mission of fighting extremism and claims that the federal government is unfairly targeting its work against these hate groups.