The Southern Poverty Law Center, the powerful left-wing political group that has spent decades branding conservatives as racists and raking in millions in tax-deductible donations to fight white supremacy, was indicted Tuesday for secretly paying members of the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazi groups, and other hate groups.
In other words, your tax dollars went to help support the Klan thanks to the SPLC, the FBI said.
A federal grand jury in Montgomery, Alabama, returned an 11-count indictment charging the SPLC with six counts of wire fraud, four counts of making false statements to a federally insured bank, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche didn’t mince words.
“The SPLC is manufacturing racism to justify its existence,” Blanche said. “Using donor money to allegedly profit off Klansmen cannot go unchecked. This Department of Justice will hold the SPLC and every other fraudulent organization operating with the same deceptive playbook accountable. No entity is above the law.”
According to the indictment, the SPLC secretly funneled more than $3 million in donated funds between 2014 and 2023 to at least eight individuals — listed by the group as “field sources” or “the Fs” — affiliated with some of the most notorious hate groups in America. The covert program originally dates back to the 1980s.
The indictment names specific secret payments from SPLC to neo-Nazis and white supremacists.
One informant, identified as F-9, was a leader of the neo-Nazi National Alliance for more than 20 years, during which the SPLC secretly paid him more than $1,000,000.
In 2014, F-9 broke into the headquarters of another white supremacist group, stole 25 boxes of documents and coordinated with a senior SPLC employee to copy them. A story based on those stolen documents was later published on the SPLC’s own Hatewatch website.
Another informant, F-37, was a member of the leadership group that planned the deadly 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. He attended the rally at the SPLC’s direction, made racist and hate postings under SPLC supervision, and helped coordinate transportation for other attendees. The SPLC paid him more than $270,000 between 2015 and 2023.
F-27 was an officer in both the National Socialist Movement and the Aryan Nations-affiliated Sadistic Souls Motorcycle Club — and received more than $300,000 in payments from the SPLC between 2014 and 2020.
Two of the informants — F-42, the former chairman of the National Alliance, and F-30, a former KKK member who led the National Socialist Party of America — were each featured on SPLC’s own “Extremist File” webpage at the same time the organization was secretly cutting them checks. The SPLC was soliciting donations to fight back against the men while paying them.
The indictment also alleges the SPLC funneled more than $160,000 through a fictitious entity to an informant who then passed funds to the former Grand Wizard of the KKK.
FBI Director Kash Patel slammed the group.
“They lied to their donors, vowing to dismantle violent extremist groups, and actually turned around and paid the leaders of these very extremist groups — even utilizing the funds to have these groups facilitate the commission of state and federal crimes,” Patel said. “Follow the money, because money never lies and they got caught.”
Blanche said the investigation began years ago but was shut down under President Joe Biden before the Trump administration revived it.
The SPLC’s interim CEO Bryan Fair called the charges “false allegations” and insisted the program “saved lives.”
The SPLC first built its reputation by suing Klan-related groups into bankruptcy.
But in recent years, it became extremely liberal and expanded its “hate group” designation to target mainstream conservative and Christian organizations such as Moms for Liberty, Turning Point USA, the Family Research Council, and Parents Defending Education, and listed them alongside actual Klan chapters on its website.
Some of the very Klan chapters the SPLC was helping fund.