A federal grand jury alleges the Southern Poverty Law Center secretly funneled over $3 million to individuals and groups, including the KKK, Aryan Nations, and the National Socialist Party of America
The Southern Poverty Law Center, long notorious as a partisan smear factory masquerading as a civil rights watchdog, was hit with an 11-count federal indictment Tuesday for wire fraud, false statements to banks, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
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A federal grand jury in Montgomery, Alabama, alleges the SPLC secretly funneled over $3 million in donor dollars between 2014 and 2023 to individuals tied to violent extremist outfits — including the Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations, and National Socialist Party of America — all while raking in contributions by pretending to fight the very “hate” it was allegedly bank rolling.
According to the indictment:
The objective of the scheme and artifice was to obtain money via donations through materially false representations and omissions about what the donated funds would be used for.
In order to covertly pay the individuals, the SPLC opened bank accounts connected to a series of fictitious entities. The covert nature of the accounts allowed the SPLC to disguise the true nature, source, ownership, and control of the fraudulently obtained donated money the SPLC paid the individuals. In order to keep the scheme going, the SPLC made a series of false statements related to the operation of the accounts.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche didn’t mince words at the joint press conference with FBI Director Kash Patel: “The SPLC is manufacturing racism to justify its existence.” He added that the organization was “not dismantling these groups. It was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred.”
“The SPLC allegedly engaged in a massive fraud operation to deceive their donors, enrich themselves, and hide their deceptive operations from the public,” said FBI Director Kash Patel. “They lied to their donors, vowing to dismantle violent extremist groups, and actually turned around and paid the leaders of these very extremist groups – even utilizing the funds to have these groups facilitate the commission of state and federal crimes. That is illegal – and this is an ongoing investigation against all individuals involved.”
This bombshell indictment is the latest — and most damning — chapter in the SPLC’s troubled history. Once respected for taking on actual Klan violence in the 1970s and ’80s, the organization devolved into a lavish, multimillion dollar grift machine that weaponized “hate group” labels against mainstream conservatives, Christians, pro-family organizations, and parental rights groups.
The SPLC’s notorious “Hate Map” and annual “Year in Hate and Extremism” reports have long been criticized as partisan hit lists, grouping conservative groups, like Moms for Liberty, with actual neo-Nazis. It has faced lawsuits and settlements for false labeling, including a notable apology to Dr. Ben Carson. The FBI under Director Patel later severed all ties with the SPLC, branding it a “partisan smear machine.”
Their inciting rhetoric hasn’t stayed on paper.
In August 2012, after the SPLC branded the Family Research Council (FRC) — a respected pro-family policy organization — a “hate group” for its biblical stance on marriage and human sexuality, gunman Floyd Lee Corkins II stormed FRC headquarters in Washington, D.C. Armed with a pistol and a backpack full of Chick-fil-A sandwiches (meant to be smeared on his victims). Corkins told investigators he chose the target directly from the SPLC’s hate map. He opened fire, wounding security guard Leo Johnson, who heroically stopped the massacre before Corkins could carry out his plan to kill as many people as possible. Corkins was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in federal prison.
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