DOJ Charges Civil Rights Group With Fraud, Alleges Payments to Extremist Groups

The Justice Department (DOJ) on Tuesday charged the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) with 11 counts of fraud and money laundering, and accused it of stoking racial hate.

The Details: The charges include six counts of wire fraud, four counts of bank fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. In the indictment, the DOJ alleged the SPLC used this money to pay over $3 million to informants infiltrating white supremacy and other extremist groups between 2014 and 2023. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche accused the SPLC of "not dismantling these groups" but instead "manufacturing racism to justify its existence." The DOJ also claimed SPLC failed to comply with its nonprofit status by not disclosing the payments with its donors. SPLC has denied the claims.

Paying Informants: The indictment described multiple informants, including those monitoring the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, and those embedded in neo-Nazi groups, the Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Nation and other extremist organizations. It also alleged that SPLC officials opened several bank accounts under fake businesses, and then reportedly sent funds directly to high-level individuals within or connected to extremist groups. Deseret (Center bias) reported the SPLC closed four of its bank accounts in 2020 after Bank-1 began an internal investigation of these accounts. 

SPLC Response: On Tuesday, SPLC CEO Bryan Fair said the organization was being "targeted" by the Trump admin, and that the money was used to compensate informants who were gathering information to relay to law enforcement. Fair also said the program was kept quiet to protect the safety of informants, and that the organization "will vigorously defend ourselves, our staff, and our work." 

For Context: The SPLC was founded in 1971 to combat hate and bigotry by dismantling white supremacy, advancing human rights and monitoring extremists groups. In October, the FBI severed its ties with SPLC, with FBI Director Kash Patel calling it a "partisan smear machine."

How the Media Covered It: Outlets on the left elevated Fair's defense of the SPLC. NBC News (Lean Left) covered ongoing action against the SPLC by the Trump administration. USA Today (Lean Left) emphasized paying informants has been used to infiltrate hate groups for years, and it's a tactic also used by the FBI. A New York Post opinion (Right) piece reported the indictment's allegations as fact, and said the SPLC was "deliberately keeping a dying enemy on life support so that it could fight against it perpetually." National Review (Lean Right) and Deseret both detailed SPLC's finances and outlined where the $3 million allegedly went. Reason said the allegations that SPLC was manufacturing racism is "well-substantiated" even without the "latest revelations" of SPLC's "role in funding" extremist groups.

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