SPLC 2

818

MERRIOK

see new 519 tag hate [could also use for all phobes?]

TARGET DOJ 3 4 26 RETALIATION [the map really po'd the xians?]

ED FUCKING MARTIN CRC

SEE PERKINS FRC

SEE POSO

SEE HEIDI BEIRICH

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AN TC 8 26 SEE DOJ 3 FOR COLOR

In April 2026, a federal grand jury returned indictments charging the Southern Poverty Law Center with wire fraud, bank fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

The indictment alleges the SPLC, a nonprofit legal advocacy group, secretly funneled more than US$3 million in donated funds to people associated with violent extremist groups, including the Ku Klux Klan and Aryan Nations.

Prosecutors allege that the SPLC secretly paid members of those groups to act as confidential informants without telling donors. Eight informants received the money between 2014 and 2023, according to U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche.

The SPLC has denied the charges and seeks their dismissal, with lawyers for the group adding that the charges constitute “vindictive prosecution.” The SPLC’s interim president, Bryan Fair, has stated that the informant program “saved lives” and reflected decades of dangerous civil rights work.

Critics of the prosecution at Lawfare, a media site focused on the U.S. legal system, argued that the indictment is among “the most cynical criminal cases ever brought by the Department of Justice.” They noted that the SPLC had no legal duty to disclose the confidential nature of its informant program to donors.

Within hours of the Justice Department’s indictment, I found that white supremacist influencers on Telegram, Gab and other social platforms were celebrating the arraignment. They portrayed the charges as proof that journalists and civil rights groups documenting extremist movements could no longer be trusted.

The indictment became a rallying point to discredit not only the SPLC but the wider body of research on hate groups and political extremism. I believe that these narratives will be used to help justify increasingly radical and, in some cases, violent responses.

Ideological ammunition

Some conservative advocacy groups and right-wing media outlets – including Moms for Liberty and the Daily Signal – immediately stripped the indictment of its legal context. In online posts, they recast it as established proof that the SPLC had been deliberately creating extremist activity rather than investigating it.

A Telegram search I conducted on May 6 identified 22 posts mentioning the SPLC across at least six white nationalist channels. Most appeared within 72 hours of the indictment. The posts did not engage in sustained discussion. They repeated a small set of claims.

The Super Sincere Alpha GOONMAXXING Aryan Sigma Patriot channel wrote: “The SPLC is a hate group.”

Other channels cited the indictment as proof that the SPLC had been paying sources to manufacture the very extremism it claimed to fight. In the White Lives Matter Official Telegram channel, users were urged to “become an activist for your race” while referencing the SPLC as an opposing force.

The similarity across channels and social media is notable. The same framing appeared repeatedly within a short time window. This suggests rapid circulation of a shared narrative across networks rather than independent commentary.

The neo-Nazi, neo-fascist layer

Comments on the Southern Poverty Law Center indictment by members of the Commander George Lincoln Rockwell channel – named for the founder of the American Nazi Party – demonstrate how antisemitic conspiracy theories work, not as explicit rhetoric but as a broader narrative.

Internet discussions portrayed the SPLC as a politically motivated or illegitimate actor. Posts in Patriot Front Updates, for example, circulated allegations of fraud and money laundering while criticizing the SPLC and its efforts to identify and challenge white nationalist activity.

I found that this criticism of the SPLC also became connected to a broader antisemitic conspiracy narrative – one that portrays the organization as operating on behalf of purported Jewish interests rather than simply as an advocacy organization with political and ideological commitments.

These narratives circulated alongside the “great replacement theory,” which falsely claims that shadowy elites are encouraging immigration and demographic change to replace the white population and diminish its political and cultural influence. It’s a conspiracy theory that the SPLC and others have documented as central to contemporary white nationalism.

In this logic, the indictment is not an isolated fraud case – it is evidence that a coordinated network of institutions has been systematically suppressing white identity.

Victimhood as recruitment

Scholars of white nationalism have long identified victimhood narratives as central to that movement’s appeal. By portraying white people as under attack or unfairly displaced, these narratives transform social change into a story of persecution and provide a powerful justification for political mobilization.

My research on white nationalism shows how contemporary extremist movements rely less on formal membership and more on decentralized digital spaces. It is there that narratives, grievances and identities are continuously reinforced.

In these environments, major news events like the SPLC indictment become opportunities.

Why this pattern repeats

Extremist movements have long used mainstream controversies as recruitment opportunities.

Participants often interpret external events through narratives of threat, injustice and persecution. In doing so, they transform moments of controversy into evidence that their worldview is correct.

In the 1990s, for instance, the deadly standoffs between federal officers and the Branch Davidians religious sect near Waco, Texas, and survivalist Randy Weaver in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, became foundational persecution narratives for militia and Christian Identity movements. These groups saw the sieges as proof that the federal government was hunting gun owners and religious dissenters.

In online extremist communities, these events can become powerful tools for reinforcing group identity and attracting individuals who are searching for explanations or belonging.

With a real-world legal event like the SPLC indictment, extremists can point to government action as evidence that their worldview is being validated. The result is a narrative that appears responsive to current events, even when the connection is shallow or distorted.

Redirected domestic terrorism policy

Legal scholars have noted that the Justice Department indictment fits within the Trump administration’s broader pattern of redirecting domestic terrorism policy away from white supremacist groups.

The Trump White House’s 2026 Counterterrorism Strategy does not mention violent far-right groups as a domestic terrorism threat at all.

That context matters for understanding how the SPLC case landed in extremist spaces: not as an isolated fraud allegation but as institutional permission. The indictment has become a symbol before the evidence has been weighed.

In today’s fragmented digital media environment, symbols travel faster than facts, especially when they confirm what a radicalized audience already wants to believe. I believe the real danger is not that white supremacists believe the SPLC is guilty. It is that the controversy, whatever its legal outcome, has already done its work.

Art Jipson, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Dayton

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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RWW

Melissa Ryan @ Ctrl Alt Right Delete: Revenge of the White Supremacists

Heidi Beirich isn’t the Trump Regime’s first target, and she won’t be the last.

This week, on the anniversary of the Unite the Right Hate Riot in Charlottesville, Virginia, Trump’s Department of Justice announced the arrest of Heidi Beirich — former head of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project. She tracked hate groups and founded the Global Project Against Hate & Extremism. Beirich is accused of defrauding SPLC’s donors to fund white supremacist groups, part of DOJ’s broader effort to destroy and discredit SPLC

If you don’t know Heidi Beirich’s name, you’re certainly familiar with her work and expertise. Beirich’s entire career has been spent investigating and exposing hate groups. Anyone who covers far-right extremism and related topics or works in anti-hate spaces owes Beirich a debt of gratitude. Much of what we know about hate in the US, and the way it’s covered and investigated, comes from Beirich’s work. Here’s what you need to know:

This indictment is designed to isolate and alienate Beirich. There’s a lot to unpack here, but this is the most important thing. The indictment contains some salacious details, which reporter Phil Williams covers in his newsletter if you want to know more. We obviously don’t know the entire story, but I don’t trust the indictment for a minute, and neither should you. The DOJ couldn’t even be bothered to get Beirich’s job title correct, falsely naming her as SPLC’s former CFO. Whether because the DOJ is being strategic, incompetent, or its usual combination of both, there’s no reason to assume that the indictment is correct or even close to the whole story until proven otherwise.

The isolation is the point. A tried and true strategy of the MAGA Right is to make their targets toxic so that allies back off and don’t stand in solidarity with MAGA’s enemy of the moment. Cutting targets off from key emotional, institutional, and financial support and making allies terrified to stand in solidarity, lest they be next. I often refer to this as the ACORN strategy. The MAGA Right keeps doing this because it works -- with help from the institutional left and reactionary centrists.

Too many groups in Civil Society, even so-called allies, are more than happy to play along. Just this week, the centrist think tank Third Way put out a job notice for a Director of Anti-Extremism. Lest you think Third Way is actually doing something useful and researching hate groups, the job is for leading opposition research against members of the Democratic Socialists of America and the candidates they’re running, which apparently Third Way considers a bigger threat than the Trump Regime. Good to know, I guess, but also a perfect illustration of just how much water some are willing to carry for the fascists and why isolation often works.

The attacks against experts in far-right extremism and disinformation is so vast it’s difficult to quantify. I’m living this, and I cover it regularly, but it’s still difficult to describe the scale of what’s happened since 2021 in the anti-hate/anti-disinformation spaces. From Jim Jordan’s witch hunt investigations, to Big Tech rolling back anti-hate and disinformation policies while laying off trust and safety teams, to the #TwitterFiles bullshit from Elon Musk, and the targeting and harassment of researchers like Nina Jankowicz, the list is endless.

As someone who does this work, I can tell you it’s taken a real toll on us all. I don’t know one researcher, journalist, or advocate whose mental health and finances haven’t taken a hit over the past few years. But that doesn’t even begin to cover the impact on American politics and discourse as the MAGA Right has discredited our work and effectively isolated us from institutions and funders. So much of the research, advocacy, and brainpower has been lost—to America’s detriment.

Meanwhile, the Trump Regime’s weaponization efforts have expanded well beyond our space. This week we learned that DHS spent months spying on civil society in Minnesota, including churches, libraries, and union halls, by sending undercover agents to infiltrate local groups. You know, the kind of activity they’re mad at SPLC (which shared intel with law enforcement regularly) over. Eventually they will come for everyone who they consider an enemy.

The Trump Regime is a white supremacist group, and they’re out for revenge. Let’s be real for a minute. Making this arrest on the anniversary of Unite the Right is a choice, intended to send a message. Heidi Beirich and her team at SPLC were instrumental in covering the hate groups that organized the terror in Charlottesville and exposing them. The MAGA Right has never forgiven SPLC for its role in exposing and bringing the organizations and people responsible to justice. This is about revenge and retribution, plain and simple. Which is true of most of what the DOJ seems to do these days: abuse its power to punish political opponents.

Or as neoreactionary blogger Curtis Yarvin put it a few months ago:

“What’s cool is that I don’t really see a strong legal case that the SPLC shouldn’t be able to run these kinds of wacky black ops. That means DOJ is prosecuting the SPLC just because it (kind of) can. If so, this would be an unusual sign of “finally getting it.””

Solidarity is the only way forward. I stand with Heidi Beirich, and I encourage everyone to do the same. She has denied any wrongdoing through her lawyers, and I see no reason to believe the DOJ’s version is true or even grounded in reality. Even if you didn’t know Beirich or her work, you owe her a debt of gratitude. As her friend and colleague Eric K. Ward put it:

“Heidi was taking on organized bigotry long before “multiracial democracy,” “white nationalism,” “political violence” and “authoritarianism” became language people tossed into grant proposals. Long before most of progressive America, the racial justice field and liberal civil society were even willing to admit just how organized the threat had become…

…Her work exposed dangerous organizations, warned communities and protected people.”

The MAGA Right’s power comes from brute force. Ours can and should come from collective force. We can only win when we stand together. When we stop saying Please don’t let me be next and say Alright, try and make us. Heidi Beirich isn’t the Trump Regime’s first target, and she won’t be the last. If you’re as sick of this as I am, the best way to put a stop to it is to fight the urge to hide and instead stand strong and speak out.

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INTERCEPT

Big Finance Might Be Dooming the SPLC — Even Before Its Day in Court

The Southern Poverty Law Center is preparing for the legal fight of its life with the U.S. government — but its most immediate threat is coming from the financial system, rather than the courts.

Fidelity Charitable, Charles Schwab affiliate DAFgiving360, and Vanguard Charitable have begun blocking donor-advised fund, or DAF, donations to the SPLC — effectively cutting off one of the organization’s most important funding pipelines at a critical moment. The decision arrives alongside a politicized and bogus indictment announced late last month by the Trump Department of Justice, which is attempting to paint one of the country’s most prominent watchdogs against hate and racial violence as a promoter of it.

A letter from Democratic Reps. Jamie Raskin and Mary Gay Scanlon notes the House Judiciary Committee has received whistleblower reports that the DOJ “ordered the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Alabama to rush through the indictment of the SPLC despite serious concerns about the strength of the case.” As Alabama Reflector editor Brian Lyman wrote, “DOJ has no evidence of SPLC committing a crime. The organization’s real offense, in the eyes of Trump’s toadies, is its lack of obedience.”

But before any courts can assess the merits of the case, the SPLC is already suffering severe financial consequences.

Donor-advised funds have become a key part of American philanthropy. Managed by firms like Fidelity and Vanguard, DAFs allow donors to receive immediate tax benefits while recommending grants to IRS-recognized nonprofits over time. They are one of the primary channels many nonprofits use to connect with donors.

Vanguard, Schwab, and Fidelity are punishing a lawful nonprofit organization that hasn’t been convicted of any wrongdoing.

What’s happening to the SPLC fits a broader pattern of using financial exclusion to punish speakers who challenge those in power. In 2010, after WikiLeaks published State Department cables that embarrassed the U.S. government, major financial institutions — including Visa, Mastercard, and Bank of America — cut off its ability to receive online donations. The punishment happened without WikiLeaks ever having a chance to defend itself in a court of law. The consequences were devastating for the organization, which lost more than 95 percent of its revenue the following year.

That episode is often treated as a one-off, but my research has shown that’s far from the case. I’ve spoken to dozens of law-abiding U.S. citizens who’ve lost financial services due to speech or political viewpoints — groups like VoteAmerica, which had a bank account closed by Chase Bank and was denied an account by First Republic Bank, and the National Committee for Religious Freedom, which also had its bank account shuttered by Chase. I detail these and many other cases in my newly published book, “Transaction Denied: Big Finance’s Power to Punish Speech.”

As with the SPLC, financial censorship sometimes happens to those who have been merely accused of a crime. I’m reminded of the case of a Stop Cop City activist who faced charges for participating in an anti-police protest in Atlanta. The Daily Mail wrote a disparaging news article about her, calling her “an Antifa terrorist who is part of the Atlanta cell.” Shortly after that article was published, Chase closed the bank account she’d held for years, citing “negative media.”

The implications of this type of censorship go beyond the individual accounts impacted; it has a chilling effect on anyone who wants to attend protests or engage in advocacy. Like WikiLeaks before and the SPLC today, organizations and individuals who challenge the status quo must fear drawing the ire of the corporations that wield immense power over our financial lives.

Nonprofit Killer Provision Quietly Disappears From Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill”

We’ve also seen financial corporations try to police the news, as with a 2022 policy rolled out by PayPal that promised a $2,500 fine to any accounts spreading “misinformation” — a term left conspicuously undefined. PayPal was widely criticized and swiftly retracted the policy. Given the Trump administration’s open hostility to journalism and its novel legal tactics to attack the press, it’s entirely possible that the next target of financial censorship could be a news outlet after the WikiLeaks blockade set the precedent.

Courts have recognized the danger when the government plays a direct role in shuttering financial accounts. In Backpage.com v. Dart, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals compared a government official pressuring credit card companies to end services to a website as similar to suffocation, saying it was like “killing a person by cutting off his oxygen supply rather than by shooting him.” The Supreme Court has also seen the dangers of financial companies policing speakers at the behest of the government, noting in National Rifle Association of America v. Vullo that intermediaries like financial companies won’t stand up for free expression because they “will often be less invested in the speaker’s message and thus less likely to risk the regulator’s ire.” But in both of these cases, the government pressure was overt and coercive, triggering the First Amendment protections for the speakers involved.

“We Knew They Were Paying Informants”: SPLC Donors Reject Trump DOJ Fraud Claims

The case of SPLC is more ambiguous but no less troubling. As of now, there is no public evidence that the government contacted Vanguard, Schwab, or Fidelity directly. Instead, these financial giants are justifying their decisions by pointing to their own terms of service, which they can write and amend as they see fit and which don’t trigger the same First Amendment concerns.

But the ethical and societal concerns are just as important. Vanguard, Schwab, and Fidelity are punishing a lawful nonprofit organization that hasn’t been convicted of any wrongdoing. These companies are under no obligation to shut off SPLC donations at this time. The San Francisco Foundation, which also oversees donor-advised funds, has promised to continue sending DAFs to SPLC, noting, “we are guided by our values and by our donors, not shifting political winds.”

The result of Vanguard, Schwab, and Fidelity’s decisions could be devastating for the SPLC, which will have fewer resources available to fight this politicized prosecution. Regardless of how one feels about the SPLC, we should all object to weaponizing the financial system this way.

This is a problem across the ideological spectrum. The SPLC has itself championed the idea that DAFs should stop the flow of donations to conservative nonprofit organizations it alleges promote hate and racial violence. Pressuring financial intermediaries to advance a political agenda when no court has weighed the merits of a case is no more appropriate in those cases than it is in this one.

ICE’s Private Prison Contractors Spent Millions Lobbying to Force Banks to Give Them Loans

What is particularly ironic about this moment is that President Donald Trump himself has spoken out against financial exclusion used as a political weapon, going so far as to sign an executive order against debanking last year that attempted to stop “politicized or unlawful debanking.” But under his administration, one of the country’s most prominent civil rights organizations now faces a sudden constriction of its funding channels.

A financial system that shutters or blocks the accounts of advocacy organizations that have not been convicted of any wrongdoing is not neutral. It is a system that can be used to sideline communities and activists — without ever stepping into a courtroom.

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OMG

RWW 8 26

Hannah Rabinowitz and Holmes Lybrand @ CNN: Former employee at Southern Poverty Law Center arrested on fraud charges

The charges are part of the Justice Department’s case against the SPLC over the alleged payments, which prosecutors say were done through shell companies.

REF

A former employee of the Southern Poverty Law Center has been arrested in California on charges that she oversaw secret payments to informants inside of White supremacist groups, one of whom she was allegedly living with and had a romantic relationship with at the time.

The woman, Heidi Beirich, previously ran the SPLC’s project tracking hate groups in the US. The Justice Department has alleged that the program, which is no longer running, defrauded donors who did not realize they were helping to pay individuals inside the same groups that the SPLC aimed to root out.

Beirich allegedly “oversaw payments of donors’ money” to people inside of these hate groups, according to an indictment unsealed Wednesday. She also allegedly shared a bank account with one of those sources, which included funds from the SPLC’s payments.

“I believe she was part of the effort to open bank accounts in completely fictitious companies’ names and make payments to individuals for reasons that were not accurate as described,” Attorney General Todd Blanche said at a news conference Wednesday. “This is exactly what we said would happen in a case like this, which is that our investigators and the US attorneys and the agents working the case will can keep on working it even after the initial indictment.”

Beirich has been charged as part of a superseding indictment with wire fraud conspiracy, conspiracy to submit false statements to a federally insured bank and conspiracy to conceal money laundering.

A lawyer for Beirich denied wrongdoing on her part.

The SPLC has fought the case, arguing that the government is mischaracterizing a long-standing informant program designed to gather intelligence on hate groups, and accused the Justice Department of charging them for political reasons. Attorneys for the SPLC have also said that law enforcement officials have used information gathered by the organization’s informants in the past.

Rahmat Gul/AP

SPLC charged with defrauding donors over paid extremism informant program

4 min read

The charges are part of the Justice Department’s case against the SPLC over the alleged payments, which prosecutors say were done through shell companies. In earlier court documents, the department gave details on nine unnamed informants it says received payments through the program, which began in the 1980s.

Despite her role in overseeing the payments — some of which were directed to an Imperial Wizard in the KKK — Beirich allegedly had a romantic relationship with one source who infiltrated a White Supremacy group and stole documents for the SPLC, according to the indictment.

That person, prosecutors say, was paid over $1 million by the SPLC since 2007 – $140,000 of which was put into a bank account that Beirich and the person shared. Beirich allegedly used that money to pay for their personal living expenses.

The documents that person allegedly stole were used as part of an article that the SPLC later published. Beirich then allegedly paid a second informant $6,000 to take the fall for the stolen documents.

“Dr. Beirich is innocent, and this case is without merit,” her attorney, Michael J. Proctor said in a statement. “We believe the charges against her and the SPLC are politically motivated, and Dr. Beirich has been targeted in this case because of the important work she has done to combat hate groups and extremists.”

Proctor said Beirich left the SPLC over six years ago.

“Dr. Beirich won’t be silenced or intimidated by the government’s false and politicized allegations now,” Proctor continued. “She welcomes the opportunity to present the truth in court.”

The SPLC told CNN the indictment has not changed their commitment to the cause.

“Taking on violent hate and extremist groups is among the most dangerous work there is, and we believe it is also among the most important work we do. The actions taken by the DOJ will not shake our resolve,” the group said in a statement. “We remain steadfast in our fight for justice and in our commitment to ensuring the promise of the Civil Rights movement becomes a reality for all. We are confident in our position and look forward to presenting the evidence and making our case in court.”

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rww --> Brad Dacus warns that there will be a "price to pay" for anyone who continues to support the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Jul 9, 2026 Focus Today

Brad Dacus, President of Pacific Justice Institute, discusses the Supreme Court’s decision involving transgender athletes in women’s sports, and why his organization is challenging the Southern Poverty Law Center over its treatment of Christian legal advocacy groups. See more at https://theDove.us

Tyler O’Neil Lays Out How Organizations Like the SPLC, CHIRLA, and Antifa Fuel Violence and Riots

220,049 views Jun 13, 2025 Real Talk with Marissa Streit

Investigative journalist and author Tyler O’Neil joins PragerU CEO ‪@realtalkwithmarissa‬ to explain how the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), brands mainstream conservative and Christian groups as “hate groups” while defending groups like Antifa. He exposes how the SPLC’s so-called “hate map” has inspired real-world violence, shaped government policy, and been weaponized by Big Tech and the media to suppress dissent. He also draws concerning connections between radical activist groups like Antifa and CHIRLA, showing how these organizations fueled anti-ICE riots in Los Angeles all while receiving taxpayer funding. If you thought the SPLC was just another civil rights nonprofit, this conversation will shock you.

What is the SPLC? A Hate Map That Inspired Violenc Media, Lawsuits & the SPLC Agend Charlottesville, Big Tech & Corporate Influenc Why Mainstream Groups Are Now on the Hate Ma SPLC Scandals: Racism, Sexism, Offshore Mone The Union Revolt & Culture of Corruptio How the SPLC Weaponizes Intersectionalit Dark Money, Immigration, and the Woke Agend What You Can Do to Fight Back

05/20/2026

Peter Montgomery

At a press conference outside the U.S. Capitol Wednesday morning, Rep. Clay Fuller (R-GA) may have unwittingly revealed a basic truth about recent right-wing attacks on the Southern Poverty Law Center: they are part of a broader authoritarian assault by the Trump regime on civil rights groups and the progressive community, or in Rep. Fuller’s words, “this nonprofit-industrial complex that is seeking to destroy our country each and every day.”

The press conference was a prelude to the House Judiciary Committee hearing in which Republicans accused the SPLC of “manufacturing hate.” Speaking to a handful of right-wing media outlets were representatives of right-wing organizations complaining about having been designated as hate groups or included in extremism reporting by the Southern Poverty Law Center, including the Family Research Council, Alliance Defending Freedom, Moms for Liberty, Turning Point USA, and Awake Illinois. Joining them was right-wing journalist Tyler O’Neil, author of an anti-SPLC book.

Before the event started, a correspondent for the Real America’s Voice network could be heard falsely telling listeners that SPLC had “staged” the 2017 Unite The Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, a claim commonly heard in right-wing propaganda promoting and going well beyond the claims in the Justice Department’s bogus indictment of the SPLC for using paid informants to infiltrate extremist groups.

Speaking for the Family Research Council was its executive vice president Jerry Boykin, who falsely claimed that SPLC’s hate map is based on “no criteria” except what might help make money for the group. In reality, whether or not you agree with any particular designation SPLC makes, you can find their reasoning on the website—for example, its report on FRC’s demonization of LGBTQ people and more.

While most of the speakers complained that there were dire consequences for being placed on SPLC’s hate map, the representative of TPUSA’s George Washington University chapter was a bit off-message, dismissing it as a “silly little map” and vowing that his group would not be intimidated by the “lunatic left.”

At the hearing itself—the second one focused on the SPLC—Republican members of the Judiciary Committee trotted out expected claims about SPLC’s paid informants being used to “manufacture hate” and to allege that the SPLC smears Christians and “good pro-family organizations,” in Rep. Jim Jordan’s words. Reflecting that level of discourse was Rep. Glenn Grothman, who sighed, “They just hate Christianity, don’t they?” Rep. Michael Baumgartner said he had favorable memories of the SPLC playing a role in helping people in eastern Washington respond to an Aryan Nations compound, but he charged that the group has now become “an almost militant weaponized arm of a progressive Marxist political project.”

Right-wing witnesses also made clear that their goal is broader than taking down a single organization. Family Research Council President Tony Perkins argued that investigations should not stop with the SPLC, which he called a “hub,” but should expand to other organizations and companies that made decisions about groups based on their SPLC designations—the “spokes.” Tyler O’Neil, a reporter at The Daily Signal, which started as the Heritage Foundation’s news and commentary platform, called for a broader investigation of SPLC “and its offshoots,” naming specifically the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, which was started by a former SPLC staffer.

Judiciary Committee Democrats, led by Rep. Jamie Raskin, portrayed the DOJ prosecution as outrageous political persecution, in the memorable words of Rep. Lucy McBath, “charges so flimsy they would make Bull Connor and George Wallace blush.”

While Republicans suggested that the SPLC was somehow responsible for the violence in Charlottesville, several Democrats noted that before the Unite the Right rally, the SPLC gave the FBI a 45-page dossier warning that violence could erupt, and that SPLC had also shared information from informants that led to the conviction of members of the neo-Nazi Atomwaffen Division.

Committee Democrats also effectively used some of their time to focus on the scandalous corruption revealed this week: the DOJ’s creation of a nearly two billion dollar slush fund for the president to dole out to insurrectionists and other allies; and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s apparently related agreement in connection to Trump’s bogus lawsuit against the IRS to drop any current audits or investigations and grant a permanent blanket of immunity for any wrongdoing by Trump, his family, or their massive business networks at any time in the past. Rep. Raskin moved for the committee to subpoena administration officials involved in the creation of the slush fund, but Republicans voted to table his motion.

More than one Democratic member of Congress referred to Monday’s shooting at a San Diego mosque, in which teenagers who bonded online over white supremacist hatred killed three people before killing themselves, as evidence that far-right violent extremism deserves more attention from the committee.

Maya Wiley, head of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, was the witness called by Democrats. She delivered a powerful opening statement calling the campaign against the SPLC part of “a coordinated attack on civil rights non-profits that work to ensure voters can vote, children can learn history, and unions can protect workers,” and she deftly responded to GOP members’ often ridiculous questions. Here’s more from her opening statement:

But this case and today’s hearing aren’t about how to protect people from violent hate and extremist groups or better understand how we can prevent hate and bias. They are about using the powers of prosecution as a weapon, with the sole aim of stopping speech and activities that this administration dislikes and denying the real threats that we should all be concerned about.

In the past year, we have seen countless examples of this weaponization. This administration is coercing law firms, universities, and media companies. It is threatening to brand advocates as “domestic terrorists.” It is cutting off billions in federal grants to non-profits that do important work to track and prevent hate and bias. It is letting law enforcement off the hook for systemic misconduct that violates rights of people who need protection. It is letting violence and even extrajudicial killings by federal agents go unpunished. In all of this and more, the President has not even tried to hide his motives. And for the past year, he has also been open about his willingness to weaponize criminal law. So cases like this were inevitable. And our concern is that no organization seen as dissenting from administration policy, large or small, will ultimately be safe. …

Each year, the SPLC issues a report on hate and extremism in our country. This report is so important because it tracks organizations promoting the ideologies that brought us the Charlottesville riot that left Heather Heyer dead, and the massacres at the Tree of Life synagogue, the Emanuel AME church, and the El Paso Walmart. It is sadly part of the reason SPLC is being targeted. It is uncomfortable for an administration that has backed away from and cut grants for tracking white nationalism, which the Department of Homeland Security in the first Trump administration defined as our greatest domestic threat.

The SPLC is far too busy fighting hate to “manufacture” it. You don’t have to like or agree with all of its strategies for doing so. But the fact that SPLC is now being criminally charged for its work only shows how much more work it has to do.

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05/13/2026

Kyle Mantyla

Michelle Boorstein, Laura Meckler and Natalie Allison @ The Washington Post: White House to host 9-hour prayer festival focused on Christian roots of U.S.

Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio and Mike Johnson will speak at the event, which centers on the idea that the founders wanted the U.S. to be explicitly Christian.

Andrew Duehren and Alan Feuer @ The New York Times: Justice Dept. Officials Consider Settling Trump Suit Against I.R.S.

One of the settlement terms under review is for the I.R.S. to drop any audits of the president, his family members and businesses.

Phil Williams @ Hate Comes To Main Street: Far-Right Grudge Match: 'Unite the Right' Organizer Sues Proud Boys Founder

Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes had suggested that Unite the Right organizer Jason Kessler may have been on the payroll of the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Anthony DeBarros and Annie Linskey @ The Wall Street Journal: The Late-Night Truth Social Storms That Offer a Window Into the President’s Mind

A WSJ analysis of thousands of posts found that the president uses the social-media platform to spread conspiracy theories and attack his adversaries.

Jose Pagliery @ NOTUS: FBI Created ‘Payback Squad’ to Handle Political Cases, Sources Say

Investigators are eyeing cases similar to the recent criminal prosecution of former FBI Director James Comey, one current government official told NOTUS.

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Whistleblower says DOJ ordered prosecutors to rush SPLC indictment: report - Alternet.org

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The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has been indicted on 11 counts of wire fraud and conspiracy, accused of secretly funneling over $3 million in donations to individuals associated with violent extremist groups, including the Ku Klux Klan. This indictment alleges that the SPLC misled donors about how their contributions would be used, undermining public trust.

U.S. Department of Justice Wikipedia

Overview of the SPLC Indictment

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has been indicted on 11 counts of wire fraud and conspiracy. This legal action stems from allegations that the organization misused over $3 million in donations.

Key Allegations

Misleading Donors: The SPLC is accused of deceiving donors about the intended use of their contributions.

Funding Extremist Groups: The indictment claims that the SPLC funneled money to individuals linked to violent extremist organizations, including:
- Ku Klux Klan
- Aryan Nations
- National Socialist Party of America
- National Socialist Movement

Details of the Fraud Scheme

Timeframe

2014 to 2023

Total Funds Misused

Over $3 million

Method of Deception

Funds were allegedly funneled through fictitious entities and false bank accounts.

Purpose of Funds

Payments were made to leaders of extremist groups while SPLC publicly opposed them.

Implications of the Indictment

The indictment raises serious concerns about the SPLC's operations and its impact on public trust. The allegations suggest a significant disconnect between the SPLC's stated mission of combating extremism and its actual financial practices. The organization is now facing legal scrutiny that could lead to severe consequences if found guilty.

U.S. Department of Justice lawfaremedia.org

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RWW

04/28/2026

Kyle Mantyla

Collin Binkley @ The Associated Press: Southern Poverty Law Center says its informant program was not kept secret from law enforcement

The Southern Poverty Law Center told a federal court on Tuesday that law enforcement agencies have long known that the nonprofit paid informants to report on the movements of hate groups, rejecting assertions by the Trump administration that the nonprofit steered money to the Ku Klux Klan and other extremist groups without the knowledge of authorities.

Kali Holloway @ The Nation: The DOJ’s Bogus Allegations Against the SPLC Are a Dog Whistle to White Nationalists

The case against the anti-hate organization will reassure racists that an organization that successfully tracks, exposes, and bankrupts them is now in the government’s crosshairs.

Steve Benen @ The Maddow Blog: Comey’s second indictment shows the lengths Blanche will go to please Trump

The latest indictment of the former FBI director is ridiculous, but it’s part of an unsubtle pattern from the acting attorney general.

Benjamin Parker @ The Bulwark: State Dept. Finalizing Plan to Put Trump Picture on U.S. Passports

The new design would mark yet another U.S. government property upon which the president has plastered his likeness.

Tom Durante @ Mediaite: FCC Reviewing Disney’s Broadcast License Amid Jimmy Kimmel-Trump Feud

The FCC is reportedly prepping a review of Disney’s broadcast licenses, a day after late-night comic Jimmy Kimmel refused to apologize for a remark that First Lady Melania Trump had the “glow of an expectant widow,” a crack that has reignited a feud with President Donald Trump.

Anna Bower and Molly Roberts @ Lawfare: The Grand Conspiracy’s New Prosecutor May Be the Case’s Biggest Liability

Former Trump lawyer Joseph diGenova is one of the most vocal proponents of a conspiracy theory that he is now in charge of investigating.

Gregg Nunziata @ The Atlantic: The Age of American Caesarism

The legal right spent decades empowering the presidency. Now it must reckon with the system it helped create.

William Vaillancourt @ The Daily Beast: Pentagon Pete Goes Full Make-a-Wish for Washed Up MAGA Star

Kid Rock previously marveled at an Army helicopter flyby over his Nashville home.

Isabella Corrao, Jane Lee and Helena Hind @ Media Matters: “Nothing short of treasonous”: Right-wing media ramp up attacks on Democratic officials, mainstream news, and Iran war critics as “traitors”

Fox host Will Cain: “As we’re in a high-stakes moment overseas, some Democrats sound like they’re not on team America."

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AN 4 26 VID]

President Donald Trump's administration is going after the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a legal advocacy organization that tracks extremism, on what many think are trumped-up charges. Now one Trump ally is trying to make a link between the SPLC and the gunman who rushed Secret Service officers outside of the White House Correspondents' Association dinner on Saturday.

Jordan, who wants to have a hearing to go after the SPLC through Congress, tried to connect the two by insisting it "shouldn't be lost on anyone" that the Department of Justice indictment against the SPLC dropped the same week as an assassination attempt against Trump and top administration officials.

"And it's no accident, I don't think, and it shouldn't be lost on anyone that the same week that there's a third assassination attempt on the president, the Southern Poverty Law Center gets indicted for all this baloney they were doing, dividing the country," said Jordan.

The CNN host fact-checked Jordan to make it clear that there was no connection between the gunman and the SPLC. Jordan conceded that point, but then repeated the same line.

"There's no connection, I'm not saying that, but it shouldn't be lost on anyone that they happened the same week. I think that sort of tells us, you know, what's — what's going on out there that contributes to these, you know, three assassination attempts on President Trump," Jordan stuttered.

The allegations against the SPLC are that the group paid informants who were either part of,or spying on, the hate groups the government flagged. The charges allege the SPLC is a funder of domestic terrorism.

The SPLC then coordinated with law enforcement, including the FBI, to ensure that any information they had in advance of possible terrorist attacks, public acts of violence or violence against the U.S. government went to the proper law enforcement channels.

Joyce Vance, who previously served as the federal prosecutor for the Northern District of Alabama from 2009 to 2017, wrote last week about the charges filed in Montgomery, AL.

"The Justice Department wants us to believe that one of the nation’s leading civil rights groups, the people who broke the Klan and continue to expose the white supremacist groups that crop up in its wake, is actually supporting racism and domestic terror, that they’re in fact responsible for whipping up the frenzy," Vance wrote. "This indictment tells a story, and the story is that SPLC engaged in material support for domestic terrorist groups."

The problem, she said, is that the case relies on one major "faulty premise: that you should look only at one piece of SPLC’s work to infiltrate these dangerous groups, not at their overall efforts to dismantle them."

Jordan and the DOJ assume that donors to the SPLC wouldn't want their money going to pay informants who gathered inside information about white supremacist and hate groups that were then handed over to law enforcement.

Vance noted that the indictment goes on to suggest that somehow the SPLC is responsible for the "Unite The Right" in Charlottesville, VA, during Trump's first term.

As Vance explained, "If you want to learn about white supremacists, you have to go and talk to them."

Jordan believes that the real hate group is the SPLC because its money contributed to people who may have contributed to such groups.

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an 4 26

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has been accused of lying about the conduct of the Southern Poverty Law Center, per a new court filing, giving an incorrect statement during an interview on Fox News.

President Donald Trump's Justice Department last week secured a grand jury against the SPLC, the prominent legal advocacy organization that focuses on civil rights and racial justice issues, and maintains an extensive list of known hate groups. The charges stemmed from the group's use of paid informants to infiltrate hate groups like that Klu Klux Klan and Aryan Nations, with the DOJ claiming that it defrauded donors while secretly paying out $3 million to informants. It further accused the SPLC of funding racism to find racism.

The SPLC admitted that it had used informants in the past, but counter-argued that nothing it did was illegal, the program saved lives and it no longer uses informants.

One of the DOJ's other major accusations against the group was that it did not provide the information it acquired to law enforcement officials. Speaking with Fox News's Laura Ingraham about the indictment, Blanche claimed that "no allegation or information" the group obtained via an informant was shared with law enforcement.

In a court filing from Tuesday, the SPLC hit back against the allegations and accused the DOJ of misrepresenting its conduct in numerous ways. Notably, it completely dismissed the allegations about not sharing information with informants and argued that the indictment might have been obtained with the sort of lies and misstatements.

"Acting Attorney General Blanche’s public statements claiming the SPLC failed to inform law enforcement of information gathered via the informant program, particularly in the face of evidence demonstrably proving otherwise, is especially concerning given the specific allegations surrounding the Unite the Right rally in the indictment," the SPLC's legal team wrote. "This further underscores the concerns that this indictment is a direct result of the same types of misleading and/or inaccurate statements to the grand jury that administration officials have made in the media."

The filing also added: "This prosecution is as unprecedented as it is irregular. Comments made by administration officials and flaws in the indictment itself suggest the case results from misleading both the public and the grand jury that voted on the charges.”

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AN 4 30 26

DOJ indictments are converging with MAGA media narratives

Written by Matt Gertz

Published 04/30/26

Recent Justice Department indictments whose validity have been questioned by legal experts demonstrate an increasing alignment of the Trump DOJ’s activities with the narratives of the MAGA media echo chamber.

President Donald Trump has long sought to use federal law enforcement to punish his enemies, and under former Attorney General Pam Bondi, the DOJ and FBI launched scattershot and apparently pretextual probes targeting figures like Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff over behavior unrelated to the president’s gripes.

But since Trump’s former personal lawyer Todd Blanche became acting attorney general last month, the president’s federal retaliation machine has seemed to sync up more closely with long-running talking points of his propaganda arm rather than simply focusing on the same targets.

Federal charges were filed or unsealed in recent days against the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights group; former National Institutes of Health official Dr. David Morens; and former FBI Director James Comey. Legal experts have said that each of these cases are either weak or concern behavior common among Trump administration officials.

Each set of charges, however, has buttressed MAGA arguments, and provided their proponents with fresh opportunities to leverage them for content. And they foreshadow the potential fruits of DOJ’s ongoing “Grand Conspiracy” investigation, which unifies a string of conspiracy theories promoted by Fox News hosts like Sean Hannity under the auspices of Joe diGenova, a Republican lawyer and longtime fixture in right-wing media.

James Comey

Citation

Fox News

The target. Comey served as director of the FBI from 2013 until May 2017, when Trump fired him over his handling of the federal probe of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, which the president describes as a “hoax”; he subsequently became a key figure in the right’s “deep state” conspiracy theories. The DOJ indicted Comey last year over congressional testimony he gave in 2020, but a judge dismissed the case, ruling that the appointment of the prosecutor who filed the indictment (and replaced a U.S. attorney who had questioned the case) had been unconstitutional.

The charges. Federal prosecutors on April 28 charged Comey with one count of “Threatening the President” and one count of “Transmitting a Threat in Interstate Commerce” related to a now-deleted May 2025 Instagram post in which Comey posted a photo of shells arranged on a beach to spell out “86 47” and commented, “Cool shell formation on my beach walk.” In the press release announcing the charges, Blanche said, “The temperature needs to be turned down, and anyone who dials it up and threatens the life of the President will be held accountable,” while FBI Director Kash Patel added, “James Comey disgracefully encouraged a threat on President Trump’s life and posted it on Instagram for the world to see.”

The underlying right-wing media narrative. MAGA pundits have argued that recent examples of political violence targeting the right are the result of overheated commentary from Democrats and the media, often erasing incidents of right-wing political violence and ignoring violent rhetoric from the likes of Trump in the process. Numerous Fox News personalities suggested last May that Comey face an investigation or charges over his post, with Jesse Watters calling for it as “retribution.” And the indictment came days after a gunman allegedly targeting the president was stopped trying to breach the perimeter at the April 25 White House Correspondents Association’s annual dinner, which Trump, the White House, and media allies subsequently blamed on criticism from Democrats and journalists. VID]

The response from legal experts.“Supreme Court precedent has placed a high bar for convictions in threat cases like these, and former prosecutors and First Amendment scholars alike were highly skeptical the new prosecution would be successful,” CNN reported. Even some lawyers who are Fox News contributors aren’t buying DOJ’s argument — George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said on Fox that Comey’s Instagram post would “very likely be viewed as protected speech if it was the basis of a criminal indictment” and “have a hard-time standing up in court,” while Andrew McCarthy wrote at National Review that the “bogus” indictment is a “farce,” called Comey’s conviction “inconceivable,” and added: “Of course, when the Justice Department abuses power this way, as it has repeatedly, it shreds its credibility with the courts and undermines the integrity of all its work.”

The response from the MAGA right. While the indictment drew skepticism on Fox’s daytime coverage, the network’s evening programs championed it on Tuesday night. MAGA lawyer Mike Davis said on The Ingraham Angle that the charges were “a long time coming,” offered “cheers” to Blanche and Patel, called Comey’s post “a clear threat,” and claimed, “There have been people who have gone to prison for a lot less than this.” Hannity, meanwhile, mocked the idea that “86 47” could mean anything but “get rid of Trump,” and hosted Fox legal analyst Gregg Jarrett to claim that Comey “surely knew what the phrase meant” and that “if he tries to claim free speech as a defense, that's not going to work.”

Dr. David Morens

Citation

Fox News

The target. Morens is an expert in public health and infectious diseases who served from 2006 to 2022 as senior adviser to Dr. Anthony Fauci, then the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

The charges. The Justice Department announced on April 28 that Morens had been charged with “conspiracy against the United States; destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in federal investigations; concealment, removal, or mutilation of records; and aiding and abetting,” specifically by using his personal Gmail account to conduct what prosecutors allege was government business in order to avoid public disclosure. Blanche alleged in the press release that Morens “deliberately concealed information and falsified records in an effort to suppress alternative theories regarding the origins of COVID-19,” while Patel claimed that “circumventing records protocols with the intention of avoiding transparency is something that will not be tolerated by this FBI.”

The underlying right-wing media narrative. The right-wing media echo chamber responded to the COVID-19 pandemic in part by turning Fauci into a hate object. Its participants also claimed that the coronavirus originated through a lab leak from a Chinese virology facility and its development may even have been funded by American tax dollars, rather than the prevailing view that the virus initially spread among wild animals before jumping to humans at a market in Wuhan, China. Morens and his email practices came under scrutiny from congressional Republicans and right-wing media in 2023 and 2024. While the Justice Department suggests Morens was acting to suppress the lab leak theory, The New York Times reports that the DOJ’s investigation “has so far yielded no evidence that scientists or health officials were involved in research that started or spread the coronavirus outbreak” and his emails in the indictment “do not show him trying to conceal evidence of a lab leak.”

The response from legal experts.Scott Amey, general counsel at the nonpartisan Project on Government Oversight, told The New York Times that “the allegations are quite concerning,” but also “noted that senior members of the Trump administration have themselves been accused of trying to evade federal record-keeping laws.” Indeed, The Washington Post reported last year that top Trump administration national security officials were communicating over their private Gmail accounts, and in March 2025, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared operational details of an impending U.S. military strike over an unsecured Signal chat with Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, other Trump administration officials, and Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg, who had been accidentally added to the chain.

The response from the MAGA right. The New York Post reported on — and effectively generated — “pressure on DOJ to prosecute Anthony Fauci” in light of Morens’ indictment. Its Thursday article claimed that “critics say Fauci … bears the most responsibility and that he should be hauled into court,” citing the head of a right-wing think tank, Republican Sen. Rand Paul, and a former DOJ official who is now national political reporter at the right-wing media outlet Real America’s Voice.

The Southern Poverty Law Center

Citation

Fox News

The target.The SPLC is a nonprofit civil rights organization best known for its monitoring, researching, and reporting on white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and others it describes as “hate and antigovernment extremist groups” that “make up some of the most extreme elements of the hard right.”

The charges. The Justice Department revealed April 21 that a grand jury had returned an indictment charging the SPLC with “11 counts of wire fraud, false statements to a federally insured bank, and conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering.” DOJ alleges that by using paid informants to infiltrate hate groups, the SPLC “secretly funneled more than $3 million in donated funds to individuals who were associated with various violent extremist groups” from 2014 to 2023, including to one individual who “was a member of the online leadership chat group that planned the 2017 ‘Unite the Right’ event in Charlottesville, Virginia, and attended the event at the direction of the S.P.L.C.” Blanche claimed in a press release that SPLC was “manufacturing racism to justify its existence,” while Patel alleged the group “engaged in a massive fraud operation to deceive their donors.”

The underlying right-wing media narrative. As the American right adopted positions previously espoused only by explicit white supremacists, the SPLC drew its ire by expanding its monitoring to include “extreme” right-wing elements that were nonetheless accepted within its mainstream, like Turning Point USA. Right-wing media figures denounced SPLC’s characterizations of TPUSA after the assassination of its founder, MAGA operative Charlie Kirk, in September 2025, and the following month, Patel said the FBI was cutting ties with the group, which he described as a “partisan smear machine.” Right-wing media figures have also pushed back hard against links between Trump and the deadly Charlottesville event, and described white supremacy itself as a “hoax.”

The response from legal experts.The SPLC indictment “may contain serious legal defects that could lead to a full or partial dismissal because it struggles to articulate the elements of the alleged crimes,” CBS News reported after consulting former federal prosecutors. “Legal experts say it is not clear exactly how the SPLC's statements to donors represent material falsehoods or omissions, or why its past use of paid informants would run counter to its mission of dismantling white supremacist groups, a tactic that federal and local law enforcement also utilize to infiltrate and break up criminal organizations,” the report added. Andrew Weissmann, who led the DOJ Fraud Section from 2015 to 2019, likewise wrote in a piece for Just Security that DOJ’s claims “may sound superficially plausible in a press release against an organization dissimilar to the SPLC, but nothing in the speaking indictment against the Center appears to meet the legal standard required” for the charges.

The response from the MAGA right.Right-wing pundits have gleefully parroted the DOJ allegations, using them both to the SPLC and to suggest that the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally had been a false-flag hoax instigated by the left as a way to sabotage Trump. Fox personalities alone have mentioned the SPLC nearly 400 times since the indictment’s release, according to a Media Matters review. (The indictment was “huge breaking news,” as Hannity put it before hosting Patel to accuse the SPLC of the “ultimate definition of hypocrisy.”) Trump himself has picked up the story, rambling about how “Southern Law” is a “total scam” in an interview with CBS over the weekend. The president said in part:

I see these No Kings which are funded just like the Southern Law was funded. You all that Southern Laws, financing the KKK and lots of other radical, terrible groups. And then they go out and they say, oh, we’ve got to stop the KKK. And yet they give them hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars. They work. It’s a total scam run by the Democrats. It shows you that, like Charlottesville, Charlottesville was all funded by the Southern Law. That was a Southern Law deal, too. And it was done to make me look bad. And it turned out to be a total fake. It basically was a rigged election. This was a part of the rigging of the election. And that’s what you really should be doing. I mean, I hope one of your 60 Minutes episodes, which really hasn’t changed very much for the last few years, I’m surprised. But one of those episodes should be on Southern Law, and the fact that they spent millions and millions of dollars on absolute far right and just bad, bad groups, and then they’d use those groups and they’d say, these are Republican groups, and we’re coming to your rescue, and they’re the ones that have funded it, and they’re the ones that kept them, keep them going. Pretty sad.

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Joel Webbon Claims SPLC Indictment Proves Racism Is 'Not Real' | People For

VID?

Joel Webbon Claims SPLC Indictment Proves Racism Is 'Not Real'

04/27/2026

Kyle Mantyla

When the Trump administration unveiled its politically motivated indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center last week, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche accused the organization of "manufacturing racism to justify its existence."

While the indictment merely alleges that the SPLC committed financial crimes by making payments to informants working in various extremist groups, Blanche's inflammatory framing was designed to create the impression that the well-documented racism, sexism, and antisemitic extremism within the right-wing movement doesn't actually exist.

The SPLC had long drawn the ireof conservatives who are now eager to use the indictment to discredit the SPLC and its decades of work tracking and exposing right-wing extremism and, by extension, whitewash the movement's long history of extremism. .

This is leading to absurd situations where racist, antisemitic, and deeply misogynistic theocratic fascist Christian nationalist pastor Joel Webbon is using the indictment as evidence that "America does not have a racist problem."

"It's so clear that America does not have a racist problem, at least in terms of like pure, baseless, mindless hatred towards minority people," Webbon said on his program last Friday.

"If America really was racist against brown people, black people, whatever, there wouldn't be much money to be made," Webbon claimed. "It wouldn't be lucrative. They wouldn't be doing it. They're only doing it because it's not real."

:{:{"There's a lot of money to be made in slaying dragons or pretending to slay dragons that have already been slain," he continued. "Either the dragon doesn't exist at all, and that's why it's lucrative, or—I'm just going to throw this out there—the dragon's actually good and it's actually the king who's commissioned the knights and they're actually the bad guys.}:

This whole witch hunt for white supremacists who hate brown people simply because they're brown, the reason why that's so lucrative and there are NGOs with millions and millions of dollars for that is because the white people in America are predominantly, on the whole, not racist. White people in America are, if anything, I think, too trusting, too gullible, toxic empathy. White people in America are like, 'You know what? I know that this will kill my grandchildren, but can we just import half of the country of Haiti, just to be nice?' So not only is racism non-existent, if anything, we could probably use a little bit more racism in America."}:

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As amply demonstrated by this very video, Webbon himself is proof that racism in America is very real, and this is just the latest a long line of examples from him.

In 2024, Webbon declared that if he were facing the choice between seeing to a black doctor or a white doctor, he's chose the white doctor because "if there’s a chance that one of them was not qualified, and was given a free pass, it’d be the black guy."

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In 2025, Webbon told black people to "stop whining" about the oppression they have suffered throughout American history because "it's your fault."

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That same year, Webbon urged white parents to have "the talk" with their children about avoiding black people.

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In 2026, he said that he would discourage his daughter from marrying a moral, godly, upstanding Christian black man because "I would prefer for my grandchildren to look like me."

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Shortly after that, Webbon proclaimed that it is fair to generalize that all black people are impulsive and lazy.

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AN 4 26

More than friendly to fascists both abroad and at home, the Trump administration is now seeking to destroy the Southern Poverty Law Center -- historically one of the nation's most powerful and effective opponents of the Ku Klux Klan, American neo-Nazis and other white supremacist movements.

This was the latest in a long series of signals from the White House to the president's swastika-flying fans. It means that such groups need no longer fear a resolute federal response to their criminality.

On April 22, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel announced -- at a blatantly political press event -- that the Justice Department has indicted the SPLC for "wire fraud, false statements, and conspiracy to commit money laundering." The indictment, described by Patel as "massive" and "sweeping," relies on the notion that the SPLC 's use of paid informants in violent white supremacist outfits such as the Klan and the neo-Nazi National Alliance and Atomwaffen somehow defrauded its donors.

Blanche and Patel went on to assert that those payments -- which over the years amounted to millions - had financed the continued existence of those groups, a claim echoed in right-wing media outlets. In the New York Post, for instance, a columnist wrote that by paying its confidential informants, the SPLC "kept relic organizations like the Ku Klux Klan on life support."

The alleged motive was to justify the SPLC's own continued existence and fundraising by maintaining a threat from fascist violence, which Republicans in Washington have persistently minimized or dismissed. Indeed, the Trump administration has hired and promoted any number of far-right extremists, especially since its return to power.

The absurdity of the indictment ought to be obvious to anyone -- including former federal prosecutor Blanche -- who knows how the FBI prosecutes organized crime, terrorism, narcotics smuggling or violent extremism, in nearly every case depending on paid informants. Over the past few decades, in fact, the FBI and the Justice Department have relied on information from SPLC and its informants to jail violent Klansmen and Nazis.

The indictment also charges that the SPLC "concealed" its identity behind false fronts when sending money to informants, following similar practices by the FBI and the Justice Department to avoid exposing their paid agents.

To suggest that the SPLC "supported" the activities of those criminal groups, as the DOJ indictment alleges, is precisely the same as saying that federal prosecutors and FBI agents were responsible for financing the Mafia, narcotics cartels and terrorism networks.

Under questioning from reporters, Blanche essentially admitted that the indictment's fundamental claim is baseless. Asked whether the indictment specifically alleged that the SPLC payments benefited the Klan, Atomwaffen or other extremist groups, Blanche admitted that it offered no such evidence. "To the extent that there's any link between that individual receiving the money and benefits to that organization," he said, "that's not in the indictment."

Not surprisingly, perhaps, former federal prosecutors who have gone after the Klan and other violent extremists were appalled by the government's attack on SPLC.

Doug Jones, who served as U.S. attorney in Alabama, described the indictment as "outrageous" and "pure political retribution" by President Donald Trump. Having taken down white supremacist gangs himself, Jones recalled how the SPLC "helped dismantle the Ku Klux Klan's operations in Alabama and beyond" in 1981, when its attorneys and investigators secured justice in a Mobile, Alabama, lynching incident.

There are dozens of similar cases in the SPLC files, including major victories against the United Klans of America, the Invisible Empire Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, the Imperial Klans of America, and the paramilitary White Patriot Party and the Aryan Nations.

It isn't only liberal lawyers who can see through the flimsy accusations in the DOJ indictment. In The Free Press, Bari Weiss' Trump-friendly online publication, conservative Yale law professor Jed Rubenfeld warns that "the Justice Department will have a hard time proving that the (SPLC's) use of informants amounts to fraud."

Many other right-wing commentators and organizations have welcomed the indictment as just desserts for an organization whose views they despise, particularly because the SPLC has defended Muslims, gays and trans people as well as Blacks and Jews. So much for freedom of speech, a value more likely to be upheld on the right when convenient and comforting to their own.

The most telling commentary on this disgraceful frameup comes not from liberals or conservatives but from the fascist underworld. Gleeful as they are, the fascists admit that the indictment is nonsensical and indeed view its legal falsification as evidence that Trump is truly on their side.

Curtis Yarvin, the authoritarian gadfly whose writings have influenced various Big Tech figures and others in the Trump circle, celebrated the indictment on X: "What's cool is that I don't really see a strong legal case that the SPLC shouldn't be able to run these kinds of wacky black ops. That means DOJ is prosecuting the SPLC just because it (kind of) can. If so this would be an unusual sign of 'finally getting it.'"

On the "revolutionary fascist" American Futurist Telegram channel -- whose authors include former members of the Atomwaffen neo-Nazi group, linked to at least five political murders -- the indictment won praise for the same sickening reason. They know that the SPLC, far from secretly propping up violent white nationalists, is their worst enemy.

"The SPLC was not funding racist groups to enable their racism -- they, in fact, were not funding racist groups at all," the American Futurist-linked TAF Private channel posted, according to Raw Story. "What they were doing was funding bad actors within groups, with the intention of destroying those groups from the inside."

The enemy of my enemy is my friend, as the old saying goes -- and for the Trump White House, the enemy of fascism is its enemy too.

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NYT

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How the Southern Poverty Law Center Drew the Ire of Conservatives

Before the Justice Department filed charges against it, the group had faced scandal and critiques from both the left and the right.

By Richard Fausset

April 22, 2026

For much of the 21st century, the Southern Poverty Law Center has been at the center of a bitter partisan war in America over what constitutes hate.

The law center, which is based in Alabama, began in 1971, earning a reputation for battling the Ku Klux Klan in court and helping reporters and law enforcement keep tabs on far-right domestic extremists. More recently, however, the S.P.L.C. has earned the ire of conservatives by criticizing a number of organizations — including Moms For Liberty, the Family Research Council and Turning Point USA — that many on the right consider to be squarely within the American mainstream.

The conflict entered a new phase this week, when the Justice Department charged the S.P.L.C. with a number of financial crimes, including wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. The indictment focused on the law center’s past use of paid informants to infiltrate far-right groups. Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, accused the group of “manufacturing racism to justify its existence.”

To some who have been criticized by the S.P.L.C., it was a moment to savor — a potential comeuppance for what they perceive to be a powerful, politically correct bully that has sought to shame and silence legitimate voices.

“Well, I mean, obviously I experienced a certain schadenfreude, because this couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of creeps,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that supports immigration restrictions and has been on the S.P.L.C.’s influential list of hate groups for years.

The S.P.L.C. defines a hate group as an organization that “has beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics,” according to its website.

The indictment appears to fit within the Trump administration’s pattern of using the Justice Department to punish its political adversaries. The S.P.L.C. has certainly been adversarial toward the president: In an article last year, Margaret Huang, who was then the president and chief executive of the group, wrote that with President Trump’s second election, hard-right extremism now had “an ally in the highest office in the nation.”

Whether the federal charges will stick is unclear. The second Trump administration has failed to build winning cases against other political opponents, including Attorney General Letitia James of New York and James Comey, the former F.B.I. director.

But in the S.P.L.C., the administration has picked a formidable and deep-pocketed foe. Over decades, the group has been buffeted by scandal and scathing critiques from both the left and the right, yet has managed to thrive with its promise to be “a beacon of hope fighting white supremacy.”

Image

Morris Dees, a lawyer who started the S.P.L.C., with Katie Relf, left, and her daughters Minnie Lee and Mary Alice. The girls were part of a lawsuit involving sterilization procedures in 1973.Credit...Gary Settle/The New York Times

The law center was founded by Morris Dees and Joe Levin, white Alabama lawyers intent on ensuring that the gains of the civil rights movement in the Deep South stuck. With Julian Bond, the African American activist, as its first president, the S.P.L.C. took to the courts, filing suit after suit attacking the remnants of the segregation system, reforming juvenile justice and addressing matters of concern to immigrant workers, women, gay and lesbian people, and others.

The work engendered significant good will among like-minded Southerners. Catherine Coleman Flowers, an African American environmental activist from the Black Belt, recalled in an interview that the S.P.L.C. bankrupted a group called the United Klans of America with a lawsuit after two members lynched a Black man named Michael Donald in 1981.

“A lot of the work they were doing early on, was work around insuring that marginalized communities were not terrorized,” Ms. Coleman Flowers said.

Rumblings of discontent came later. In 1994, The Montgomery Advertiser ran a series of articles in which Black employees of the S.P.L.C. raised concerns about racial discrimination inside the organization. (Mr. Dees denied the accusations.)

But the law center remained influential. In 2001, its multimillion-dollar headquarters — a daring contemporary building in the sleepy heart of Montgomery — was completed. Many national news outlets regularly turned to the group’s Year in Hate reports, relying on them to give a portrait of homegrown extremism around the country.

Even so, left-wing critics soon began accusing the group of hoarding millions of dollars and paying its leaders big salaries while soliciting donations from wealthy coastal liberals and exaggerating the grass-roots threat. In a column for The Nation in 2009, Alex Cockburn, the provocative leftist writer, called Mr. Dees, who had become the face of the organization, “the arch-salesman of hate-mongering.”

Image

“A lot of the work they were doing early on, was work around insuring that marginalized communities were not terrorized,” said Catherine Coleman Flowers, an environmental activist.Credit...Audra Melton for The New York Times

“Ever since 1971, U.S. Postal Service mailbags have bulged with his fund-raising letters, scaring dollars out of the pockets of trembling liberals aghast at his lurid depictions of a hate-sodden America in dire need of legal confrontation by the S.P.L.C,” wrote Mr. Cockburn, who died in 2012.

The rise of the so-called alt-right, and a deadly rally organized by white nationalists in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, showed that racist extremism remained a tangible threat. But old concerns within the S.P.L.C. came to the fore again in 2019, when Mr. Dees was fired, and a number of top executives quit, amid allegations of sexual misconduct and racial discrimination within the organization. Mr. Dees denied wrongdoing, but acknowledged that a female employee had filed a complaint against him in 2017, stating that his actions had made her feel uncomfortable.

Conservatives took notice. For years they had bristled as the S.P.L.C. put groups that opposed L.G.B.T.Q. rights and immigration on its hate list. The Center for Immigration Studies earned a spot, the S.P.L.C. argued, as a result of its “repeated circulation of white nationalist and antisemitic writers in its weekly newsletter and the commissioning of a policy analyst who had previously been pushed out of the conservative Heritage Foundation for his embrace of racist pseudoscience.”

In 2019, the Center for Immigration Studies sued Richard Cohen, then the president of the S.P.L.C., in federal court, saying that the organization had violated civil racketeering statutes in trying to “destroy C.I.S. by ruining it financially.” The lawsuit was rejected by the courts.

That same year, Senator Tom Cotton wrote to the Internal Revenue Service, asking the agency to consider revoking the law center’s nonprofit status.

“Recent news reports have confirmed the long-established fact that the S.P.L.C. regularly engages in defamation of its political opponents,” Mr. Cotton wrote. “In fact, the S.P.L.C’s defining characteristic is to fund-raise off of defamation.”

The effort was unsuccessful, but the pressure from Republicans has only ramped up since Mr. Trump’s return to the White House. In October, Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, announced that the bureau would no longer cooperate with the S.P.L.C., calling it a “partisan smear machine.”

That same month, Elon Musk posted on social media that the group was “guilty of incitement to murder Charlie Kirk,” the co-founder of Turning Point USA who had been killed a month earlier. Mr. Musk cited another post that noted that Mr. Kirk had recently been featured in the S.P.L.C.’s Hatewatch newsletter.

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The S.P.L.C. headquarters in Montgomery, Ala. Credit...Jada Yuan/The New York Times

In December, a subcommittee of the Republican-controlled House held a hearing on the group. The chair, Representative Chip Roy, a Texas Republican, opened it by calling the S.P.L.C. “one of the most politically motivated, financially lucrative and ideologically extreme nonprofits in America,” and argued that it had been allowed to “wield extraordinary influence over federal civil rights policy, federal law enforcement training and the private sector mechanisms that increasingly dictate who is permitted to participate in civic life.”

But the Trump era appears to have been good for the group’s fund-raising. The S.P.L.C.’s latest federal tax documents on file with the government show that it had total assets of more than $822 million at the end of 2024 — more than double its total assets in 2016, the year of Mr. Trump’s first election.

In his news conference this week, Mr. Blanche said that from 2014 to 2023, the group made payments totaling more than $3 million to people who were affiliated with extremist organizations like the Ku Klux Klan and the National Socialist Party of America.

But there was little in the indictment that showed that the group had meant to help the extremist groups. In a video message just before the indictment was announced, Bryan Fair, interim president and chief executive of the S.P.L.C., said the group no longer used informants, but began working with them in the “shadow of the height of the civil rights movement,” when extremist violence was common.

“There is no question that what we learned from informants saved lives,” he said.

In a statement on Wednesday, Marc Morial, president and chief executive of the National Urban League, argued that the indictment was about “intimidation,” not accountability.

“It is about silencing organizations that have spent decades confronting hate, protecting vulnerable communities and advancing justice under the law,” he said.

A number of liberal commentators also noted this week that the use of informants was a common practice in the 1960s and 1970s. The strategy was perhaps most famously used by the F.B.I. — to infiltrate civil rights and other activist groups.

Audra D. S. Burch contributed reporting.

Richard Fausset, a Times reporter based in Atlanta, writes about the American South, focusing on politics, culture, race, poverty and criminal justice.

A version of this article appears in print on , Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Clashes Over Civil Rights Group’s ‘Hate’ Labels Preceded Charges.

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CRC BS NO BYLINE NOT 1ST

A CRC history of Southern Poverty Law Center controversies -Capital Research Center

Never a stranger to controversy, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has been indicted on federal fraud charges. An NPR report from yesterday explained the situation:

WASHINGTON — The Southern Poverty Law Center was indicted Tuesday on federal fraud charges alleging it improperly raised millions of dollars to secretly pay leaders of the Ku Klux Klan and other hate groups for inside information, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said.

The Justice Department alleges the civil rights group defrauded donors by using their money to fund the very extremism it claimed to be fighting, with more than $3 million paid to informants through a now-defunct program to infiltrate white supremacist and other extremist groups. Prosecutors allege some of the money was used by extremists to carry out other crimes, but court papers did not include specific examples.

“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.

The Capital Research Center and InfluenceWatch have reported comprehensively on the SPLC and its controversies for more than a dozen years. Some examples are provided below.

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The Southern Poverty Law Center is biased — and extraordinarily wealthy

September 2025

The controversial activist group has also become phenomenally wealthy, with an endowment rivaling prominent universities and annual revenues exceeding some of the most well-known charities in the country.

SPLC’s “Charitable” Wealth: And its costs.

July 2025

To the extent Americans are familiar with the group, it is probably for its “hate map,” which notoriously lumps Klansmen, neo-Nazis, and other genuine extremists alongside mainstream conservative and religious organizations. It also conspicuously neglects to track extremist groups on the left, perhaps most glaringly under its suspiciously sparse antisemitism category.

SPLC Blames Trump for Rise in Violent Black Nationalist Groups

January 2020

On the SPLC website is a petition with the headline, “TELL PRESIDENT TRUMP TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE HATE HE’S UNLEASHED.” The SPLC routinely publishes a press release titled “Hate in the White House,” summarizing what the SPLC asserts are “instances of extremism in the Trump administration” during each month. The SPLC recently published leaked emails from White House advisor Stephen Miller and created a petition to demand his removal for supporting what they call white nationalists and white supremacy. Searching for “Trump” returns over 1,936 results on the SPLC website, as of this writing.

VIDEO: The Southern Poverty Law Center No Longer Serves Its Original Purpose

August 2017

The Southern Poverty Law Center is an organization that has so succeeded in pushing bigots out of the mainstream, that now over 40 years after their founding, they need to constantly find new bigots inside the mainstream to fight against. When there aren’t many left, that means dangerously expanding who is called a bigot.

The SPLC’s No Good, Very Bad Day

June 2018

After being falsely labeled an “anti-Muslim extremist” in an SPLC field guide, British activist Maajid Nawaz—himself a practicing Muslim and former member of the Islamic extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir—sued SPLC over libel, winning $3.4 million.

Grants to SPLC and DEI Demonstrate Federal Spending Against Taxpayer Values

February 2025

But the State Department thought Brooks and her “poverty” named employer needed your money as well. On April 12, 2021, it shipped out an $800 “honorarium” grant for Brooks. Then in November 2021, another grant of $7,700 from State to SPLC was approved with this in the grant description: “LECIA BROOKS IS A TARGET-OF-OPPORTUNITY SPEAKER.”

*Infiltrated: The Ideological Capture of Homelessness Advocacy

October 2025

While primarily focused on civil rights, the SPLC also engages in homelessness policy by submitting amicus filings that oppose enforcement. They have connections to networks previously documented in CRC reports regarding pro-Hamas activism crossovers. SPLC has filed briefs against statutes criminalizing solicitation by the homeless, arguing that such laws exacerbate poverty cycles.

Guidestar Drops SPLC’s Fake ‘Hate Group’ Label

June 2017

So finally at the end of last week, Guidestar backed down, announcing it would cease using the dishonest SPLC labels. It claimed its decision was motivated by both its “commitment to objectivity” and concerns for its staff’s “wellbeing.”

We certainly hope any “harassment and threats” Guidestar is suffering ends. But we can’t help noticing that SPLC targets like social scientist Charles Murray and the Family Research Council have already received vastly worse harassment—a violent protest and an attempted mass murder, respectively—which is why it was outrageous for Guidestar to pile on SPLC’s innocent victims in the first place.

SPLC Amasses Half-A-Billion Dollars

April 2018

The far-left Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) ended the last tax year with close to a half billion dollars – $477 million in assets – after taking in an astounding $136 million that year, the group acknowledges in a new IRS filing.

Smearing Conservatives, Raking in Cash: The Southern Poverty Law Center’s well-funded mission to delegitimize conservative voices.

August 2012

The Southern Poverty Law Center has been at this game a long time, making money by smearing conservatives. It is so fabulously wealthy that it stashes money in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands, two of those tax haven countries the Left keeps complaining about. In addition to those foreign accounts, in its most recent publicly available tax return the SPLC discloses an absolutely astounding $238.1 million in net assets.

Southern Poverty Law Center: Wellspring of Manufactured Hate

October 2012

The Southern Poverty Law Center began with an admirable purpose but long ago transformed into a machine for raising money and launching left-wing political attacks. Lately it’s become more of a threat to free speech and civil debate than a defender of the weak or a foe of violent extremism. It has also taken in millions from the Picower Foundation, whose own funds came largely from founder Jeffry Picower’s “investing” in his old friend Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme.

Media accounts of CRC work on SPLC:

The Hill— The SPLC is biased — and extraordinarily wealthy

The Washington Times— Southern Poverty Law Center accused of union-busting after firing more than 60 workers:SPLC President Margaret Huang makes more than $500,000 a year in salary and benefits

Nonprofit Quarterly—Conservatives Attack Nonprofits on Capitol Hill

The Daily Signal—Left-Wing Nonprofits Lose Massive Funding Partner

Washington Examiner—Trump resolves to go after organizations that foment ‘political violence.’ Experts weigh in on what that could mean

Daily Mail—REVEALED: The secret George Soros network ‘behind America’s street chaos’… and the dossier that shows how to stop it

Daily Wire—Leftist Groups Exploit The Homelessness Crisis To Push ‘Anti-American Ideologies,’ Watchdog Says

The Patriot Post—When ‘Helping’ the Homeless Is Harmful:A new report reveals that much of the money spent helping people living on the streets actually ends up funding a left-wing “Homeless Industrial Complex.”

The Federalist—Report: Radical Leftist Groups Perpetuate Homeless Crisis For Their Own Benefit

Other reference materials:

InfluenceWatch profiles: Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)and Morris Dees(founder of SPLC)

Other CRC reports referencing and reporting on SPLC.

Tags: Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)

Support Capital Research Center's a

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OMFG RWW

'Charlottesville Was Not A Hoax': The Trump Administration's Indictment Of The SPLC Is Causing A Rift In The Right-Wing Movement

04/23/2026

Kyle Mantyla

Earlier this week, the Trump administration unveiled a politically motivated indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has long drawn the ireof conservatives for its decades of work tracking and exposing right-wing extremism.

In the wake of the indictment alleging that the SPLC had committed financial crimes by making payments to informants working in various extremist groups, right-wing members of Congress, organizations, and activists have wasted no time in attacking the SPLC and its allies.

But the indictment has also created a rift within the right-wing movement, as activists have started accusing other activists of being paid by the SPLC to make the right look bad.

For instance, Hitler-loving racist, misogynistic, antisemitic, homophobic,Christian nationalist, fascist, white nationalist Nick Fuentes has long been dogged by allegations that he is a "fed" or some other sort of infiltrator being paid to undermine the right-wing movement. In the wake of the SPLC indictment, Fuentes was forced to respond to claims that he is an SPLC informant.

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In a desperate attempt to deny that their movement is filled with racist, sexist, and antisemitic extremists, many on the right are seizing on the SPLC indictment to claim that just about anything that makes the movement look bad is really an SPLC false flag operation. They are focusing, in particular, on the deadly "Unite The Right" rally in Charlottesville, VA in 2017 during which a neo-Nazi named James Fields drove his car into a group of anti-racism protesters and killed Heather Heyer.

The DOJ's indictment alleges that one SPLC informant was part of an "online leadership chat group" that helped plan the Charlottesville rally, which is all the right needed to convince itself, or try to convince others, that "Charlottesville was staged by the SPLC."

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But the right-wing effort to paint the Charlottesville rally as a SPLC op is generating outrage from the white nationalists who actually organized the rally, such as Augustus Sol Invictus.

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Richard Spencer, a white nationalist who was among the speakers at the rally and was part of a group of plaintiffs who were ultimately ordered to pay millions in damages for the violence that occurred that day, appeared on "The Backlash" program on Wednesday to blast all the "dumb" conservatives who are using the SPLC indictment to dismiss the Charlottesville rally as a leftist operation.

"Conservatives are dumb and they come to the wrong conclusion and they come to a very self-serving conclusion, which is that anyone who isn't the Daily Wire or Matt Walsh or what have you, anyone who isn't in a movement conservative is somehow a puppet," Spencer told program host David Reilly, who is himself a right-wing antisemite who lost his job after attending the rally. "The fact is this indictment does not even suggest that and it's just a very self-serving thing for conservatives to now say, 'Oh, I knew it was a hoax or something.'"

"Charlottesville was not a hoax," Spencer insisted. "Conservatives get off, they've been getting off for years on just declaring that, 'They're feds, the liberals fund them so that they make us look bad,' and blah, blah, blah. They just will do this endlessly. What happens with these things is we learn new information—and I hope that we'll learn important information with this case—and you wake up a year later and somehow we're dumber, like, we have a worse conception of the event. We're not able to criticize it productively, precisely because conservatives are retards."

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rww

12/12/2025

Kyle Mantyla

Rep. Chip Roy says that Republicans in the House of Representatives will be holding hearings to expose how George Soros, NGOs, and the United Nations have been using the SPLC and antifa to promote "Marxists and Islamists who want to take this country over."

"Prophet" Mark Taylor fumes that "Susie Wiles and her people are the ones responsible for single handedly KILLING the America First Agenda!": "She is a demonic infiltrator in the highest order sent in to destroy the President and the America First Agenda."

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POST M ATTACK

the-splc-smears-jack-posobiec-jews-respond

Opinion, News, American News
Jan 4, 2022

SPLC launches hit piece on Jack Posobiec, prominent Jews stand up for him

_C.G. Jones_

Jan 4, 20224 minute read

:{*:{Originally published July 2020}:

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has recently taken aim at Jack Posobiec of One America News (OANN), charging him with ties to "far-right extremists" and targeting "Jewish journalists with antisemitic hate." In a series of responses to the article, prominent Jewish political personalities have stood up to defend Posobiec.

The SPLC wrote an article filled with guilt by association smears that claims: "Posobiec’s ties to far-right extremists travel beyond borders into Europe. His connections to white supremacy are too numerous to compile into one article, so Hatewatch is running a series of stories on the correspondent’s ties to the movement and promotion of it."

The SPLC "lays out how Posobiec rose from being a pseudonymous Game of Thrones blogger to linking up with such white supremacists as Richard Spencer and a neo-Nazi who endorsed terrorism while using the online handle @PureWhiteEvil."

In response, Posobiec has received a flurry of support from the Jewish community and others as they push back against the false accusation by the SPLC.

Founder of Americans Against Antisemitism, Dov Hikind tweeted: "Ever since I’ve followed @JackPosobiec, not once has he indulged in antisemitism, to the contrary, he’s been instrumental in highlighting the scourge of antisemitism the mainstream media is purposely ignoring! He’s owned up to his errors. He shall not be judged by them forever!"

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Twitter user @TheAndrewMeyer tweeted: "I'm an orthodox Jew. @JackPosobiec is one of my biggest supporters."

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I'm an orthodox Jew.@JackPosobiec is one of my biggest supporters.

Retract your defamation David. https://t.co/zMSru69azg— Andrew Meyer ?? #FreeCarpe (@TheAndrewMeyer) July 9, 2020

Another prominent Twitter user, @Mostofsky, tweeted: "funny. @JackPosobiec is a friend of mine. I'm Jewish. Orthodox too. Yarlmuka & tzitzis. The other guy, an Orthodox Rabbi. Not too sure you understand how White Supremecy [sic] work."

Jewish-American journalist Yossi Gestetner pointed out the double standard in the progressive media's absolution of former US president Barack Obama's ties with racist hate-monger Louis Farrakhan.

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2/2 in politics at age 30. Tue question is if those things define a person long term. The answer is no based on the way you/society give Obama a pass for doing wrong well into his 40s, and the way HRC and Biden were both brazen racists against African Americans into their 50s.

— Yossi Gestetner (@YossiGestetner) July 9, 2020

Another Twitter user, @jason_meister, tweeted: ".@JackPosobiec is a good man. A family man. He is a tremendous reporter. I stand by him as an American and a Jew."

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The SPLC, a once-respected, now-disgraced organization had previously smeared celebrated human rights campaigner Ayaan Hirsi Ali as an extremist and had to pay out $3.375 million as a settlement to Majid Nawaz, founder of Quilliam, for defamation.

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Hirsi famously and accurately referred to the SPLC as a "scam."

There is also a RICO lawsuit being brought against the SPLC by an immigration group over the "hate" label. Gavin McInnes, co-founder of Vice, filed a lawsuit at the beginning of 2019 against SPLC with regard to the Proud Boys. Shortly after McInnes filed the lawsuit, founder of the SPLC, Morris Dees, was fired, and the president stepped down, as did their top researcher in a scandal described as involving "workplace harassment, hostile workplace complaints and a lack of staff diversity."

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Antifa isn't a 'hate group,' Southern Poverty Law Center claims https://t.co/nXQBpH1kpS

— Jack Posobiec ?? (@JackPosobiec) July 22, 2019

In 2019, the SPLC failed to classify Antifa as a hate group—a loosely-knit group of violent street thugs that President Donald Trump said he intends to designate as a terrorist organization.

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hate designation has been powerful, thus retaliation, flak get hvy over target xian homophobes really pissed?

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/right-wing-media-figures-attack-fox-news-over-dominion-lawsuit-revelations

mma 3 23

March 5, 23 people, including alegal observer with the National Lawyers Guild, were charged with domestic terrorismafter an intense demonstration against a planned police training facility in Atlanta. Tom Jurgens, an employee of the Southern Poverty Law Center who was there as a legal observer with the National Lawyers Guild, has been the target of a right-wing media smear campaign claiming that the SPLC condones violence and has colluded with antifa.

Far-right activist Andy Ngo posted about the SPLC connection to one of those arrested on Twitter on March 6, and prominent right-wing media figures including Tucker Carlson and Jack Posobiec picked it up.

The confrontation with police occurred during a music festival held as part of a week of action in opposition to “Cop City,” a $90 million facility that many say was approved largely absent community input. Atlanta is already a highly policed area, and the facility will uproot parts of a culturally significant forest that is one of Atlanta’s largest remaining green spaces in a predominantly low-income, Black area.

According to police, hundreds of activists broke away from the concert and breached the site of the project. Footage from the construction site appears to show construction equipment on fire while protesters threw rocks and fireworks at police. Music festival attendees and community organizers alleged that arrests were made “indiscriminately” at the festival, which was about a mile away from the training facility and occurred an hour after the action took place. According to an attorney for some of the defendants, there has yet to be a charge for arson or interference with government property and arrest warrants cited evidence such as activists simply having mud on their shoes.

Police initially arrested 35 people. In response to Jurgens' arrest, SPLC President and CEO Margaret Huang said in a statement:

“Tom was performing a public service, documenting potential violations of protesters’ rights. We are outraged that police officers present at the protest refused to acknowledge Tom’s role as a legal observer and instead chose to arrest him.”

Right-wing media are trying to delegitimize SPLC by suggesting it condones hate and violence and falsely claiming the group helped coordinate the event:

Tony Perkins, president of the anti-LGBTQ hate group Family Research Center, told Newsmax host Chris Salcedo that the SPLC is “in bed with antifa”: “What's so bad about this is that you have the Southern Poverty Law Center that is anti-law enforcement, anti-government, they’re in bed with antifa, but yet they hold themselves out as being the definer of groups that are anti-government. … This isn't the fox guarding the henhouse; this is the fox living in the henhouse, dining on chicken.” Newsmax, The Chris Salcedo Show, [3/7/23]

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) told Fox host Sean Hannity that antifa members are “the ground troops of the Democrat party”:“You wouldn't be surprised to find out that the Southern Poverty Law Center, their own attorney, was one of them. This is who the Democrat party is. They are domestic terrorists, and antifa needs to be held accountable. And the Department of Justice better start doing their job.” Fox News, Hannity, [3/7/23]

Dinesh D’Souza called the SPLC a hate group: “The SPLC is itself a hate group, but a hate group on the side of the left. And so they promote violence. … Very often when you’ve got these rioters on the streets, you’ve got lawyers with the SPLC and other groups running around with the rioters and their idea is to quote ‘collect evidence’ that can be used to defend these people if and when they are arrested.” Salem Podcast Network, The Dinesh D’Souza Podcast, [3/7/23]

Former Georgia Rep. Jack Kingston falsely alleged that SPLC coordinated the attack: “The Southern Poverty Law Center was the group that apparently coordinated that. That's who the lawyer worked for. I do think he should be disbarred, but it was actually an orchestrated attack.” Newsmax, Wake Up America, [3/7/23]

:{:{New York Post }:reporter Jon Levine implied that the Biden administration and SPLC turn a blind eye to domestic terrorism:“Let’s just put the shoe on the other foot here, Maria. Can you imagine if 23 Proud Boys were arrested for attacking a gender reassignment clinic in Atlanta? I mean, we’d already have — President Biden would probably already be down there giving a speech.” :{Fox Business, Mornings with Maria:(style="background-color:#ffff66ff"):}:, [3/7/23]}:

:{Former Georgia Rep. Vernon Jones said the FBI should investigate the SPLC:“I would like to see the FBI investigate the Southern Poverty Law Center, because he [Jurgens] cannot be the lone wolf, the lone actor. … And if they were to delve into that organization, who's supposed to be about anti-hate, which this really, they reflect on, this individual reflecting so much hate, I think they'll find where not only has it been funded, but you’ll see others that have been involved in this prior to this incident and other incidents.” :{Newsmax, :(style="background-color:#ffff66ff"):}:John Bachman Now, [3/7/23]}:

The New York Post wrote that the SPLC “lost its moral standing” by refusing to call antifa a hate group.New York Post, [3/6/23]

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton: “So is SPLC officially a domestic terrorist group?” Twitter, [3/6/23]

Libs of TikTok:“The Southern Poverty Law Center called me a terrorist for posting a flyer of a publicly available drag show. Turns out one of their attorneys is an Antifa member and was arrested for domestic terrorism. It’s always projection with them.” Twitter, [3/6/23]

Fox News host Tucker Carlson and anchor Trace Gallagher said SPLC propogates hate and attacks its political opponents: Carlson said SPLC “exists solely to destroy the lives of anyone who stands in the way of the Democratic Party.” Gallagher claimed the center has “long been accused of monitoring hate while propagating hate” and that it defines hate as “anything SPLC disagrees with.” Fox News, Tucker Carlson Tonight, [3/6/23]

Newsmax host Rob Schmitt said people like Jurgens want to “kill you and destroy your country.”:“These are all a bunch of angry white kids that still live at home at the age of 28 and hate capitalism. … One is allegedly an attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center, the same organization which the FBI’s Richmond division recently used as a source for equating traditionalist Catholics to violent extremists.” Newsmax, Rob Schmitt Tonight, [3/6/23]

Human Events editor, neo-Nazi affiliate, and conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec called the legal observers an “antifa degenerate.”: “Here is a photo of the 23 Antifa degenerates arrested for Domestic Terrorism in GA last night after torching gov’t equipment and throwing rocks at cops. 1 of them is a lawyer for the SPLC. Sponsor? Almost all are from out of state. Proof that Antifa is a nationwide terrorist organization.” Truth Social, [3/6/23]

Lauren Witzke, a far-right political activist and president of the Stew Peter Network, posted to Gab an image of Jurgen’s LinkedIn profile: “An SPLC staff attorney was arrested and charged with domestic terrorism at last night’s #Antifa ‘Stop Cop City’ riot in Atlanta. Now It’s time to shut down the ENTIRE SPLC terrorist operation.” Gab, [3/6/23]

Far-right troll Eoin Lenihan:“Highly significant! An SPLC attorney arrested in Atlanta last night for terrorism. The SPLC is currently the biggest ally of Antifa relying on their hacked materials & doxes of individuals for their “hate watch” list. The SPLC actively hires Antifa “researchers” & “journalists”… Twitter, [3/6/23]

Andy Ngo, who has covered the protest extensively on social media and accused legal observers of “helping antifa in the violent conspiracies,” has also acknowledged his disdain for SPLC based on the center’s criticism of him. The center has called out Ngo for trafficking “in politically charged disinformation,” accepting money from a Polish cultural center for giving an anti-antifa speech in Warsaw, and being friendly with the far-right Hungarian government.

Ngo’s fixation on antifa and SPLC has helped spur responses from lawmakers. In 2021, his coverage of clashes between the Proud Boys and left-wing activists in Portland, where he was allegedly attacked by demonstrators, was an impetus for Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) bill to designate antifa as a terrorist organization. On March 8, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) introduced similar legislation to declare antifa a terrorist organization, and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) said he wanted to open an investigation into the FBI’s reliance on SPLC to identify extremist threats.

This is not the first time right-wing media have come after SPLC

SPLC is a legal advocacy organization that focuses on civil rights and is widely considered to be an authoritative voice on extremism. The center identifies and tracks hate groups and has helped law enforcement and the FBI respond to them.

The center has drawn the ire of right-wing media for calling out hate speech from conservative groups in the past. In 2017, FoxNews.com promoted the false accusation that SPLC added a conservative writer to a “hate list,” when it simply noted that she has been a guest on a radio show produced by the anti-LGBTQ hate group Family Research Council. FRC and other hate groups have united to smear SPLC for accurately labeling them as such. FRC’s official position is that “homosexual conduct is harmful to the persons who engage in it and to society at large” and “is by definition unnatural.”

In 2012, FRC tried to blame SPLC for a shooting that took place at its office because the shooter was allegedly motivated by FRC’s anti-LGBTQ hate group label. At the time, FRC President Tony Perkins doubled down on hateful rhetoric saying SPLC needs “to be held accountable, and they need to be stopped before people are killed because of their reckless labeling and advocacy for homosexuality and their anti-Christian stance.” Perkins also used the Atlanta incident to denounce SPLC for Jurgens’ presence at the protest. [twt fitton]

there’s a good reason why legal observers are necessary at protests

Opposition to Cop City has already proved fatal. In January, Manuel Terán, a young activist who opposed the project, was killed by Atlanta police under suspicious circumstances. Police maintain that Teran was to blame for the confrontation and shot an officer first.

It’s not uncommon to have legal observers at protests, particularly when tensions between law enforcement and demonstrators are high. According to the New York City Bar Association, the “work includes documenting arrests, use of force, intimidating display of force, denial of access to public spaces like parks and sidewalks, and any other behavior on the part of law enforcement that appears to restrict demonstrators’ ability to express their political views.”

Legal observers have helped protect the rights of protesters in the past. For example, according to The Intercept:

Collecting the names of people arrested at protests is the first step toward ensuring that they have legal representation. During the mass arrests at the 2004 Republican National Convention, those names allowed lawyers to secure a habeas corpus writ for hundreds of protesters who were unlawfully detained by the NYPD, sometimes for days, without access to lawyers.

Legal observers have also been punished for their work in the past. In 2021, 12 legal observers from the National Lawyers Guild sued the New York Police Department, alleging the department violated their constitutional rights at a 2020 protest in the Bronx. Even though the NYPD patrol guide says legal observers are entitled to be present, the observers allege they were prohibited from carrying out their function and even met with violence. In fact, New York City just agreed to pay more than $20,000 each to hundreds of individuals who were trapped by police and attacked with batons and pepper spray during that same protest.

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10/06/2025 RWW

Kyle Mantyla

Liberty Counsel declares that "the 'queer' movement seeks to silence and punish ALL Christians for their faith, and Obergefell is the source of their attacks": "Obergefell is the cancer, and it must go. It is incompatible with reality, biology, and religious freedom."

Todd Starnes claims that Democrats "wish they could kill Republicans, piss on their graves and then force Republican mothers to watch as their children are slaughtered": "The Democrat Party is the Party of Satan."

Mario Murillo says that "convincing preachers to stay out of politics was the masterstroke of the Devil."

Tyler O'Neil of The Daily Signal reports that he has been speaking with member of Congress about launching investigations into the Southern Poverty Law Center, which MAGA has been targeting in the wake of the murder of Charlie Kirk.

Finally, Hung Cao, who asserted that Wiccans had taken over California and brought "a lot of witchcraft" to the state while warning that "we can't let that happen in Virginia" during his failed Senate campaign in 2024, is now Under Secretary of the Navy.

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RF OMFG

RWW 10 25

Tyler O'Neil of The Daily Signal reports that he has been speaking with member of Congress about launching investigations into the Southern Poverty Law Center, which MAGA has been targeting in the wake of the murder of Charlie Kirk.

TONY PERKINS SPLC WORKING WITH ANTIFA

Tyler O’Neil, Managing Editor of The Daily Signal, covers the breaking news about the FBI’s decision to cut all ties with the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Our friends over at the Daily Signal

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reported some very, very welcome news to

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get our Friday off and running.

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According to their exclusive reporting,

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the FBI confirmed that it has severed

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all ties with the Southern Poverty Law

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Center. Now, you may recall that just