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For over 50 years, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has positioned itself as one of the United States’ top opponents of extremism, particularly white supremacy. But after a federal grand jury returned a bombshell indictment alleging the group used millions in charitable contributions to fund violent extremist groups like the Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations, and National Socialist Party of America, the SPLC is looking less like a civil rights organization and more like a left-wing hoax factory à la Jussie Smollett.
The Charlottesville Hoax?
According to the Justice Department’s indictment, the Southern Poverty Law Center “engaged in the active promotion of racist groups” while it “was denouncing the same groups on its website.” One of the most high-profile examples of the nonprofit’s alleged duplicity unfolded in central Virginia in 2017: Who could forget the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, where a group of demonstrators - including white supremacists - gathered in opposition to plans to remove a Confederate statue. The rally sparked a violent clash between protesters and counter-protesters that left one person dead.
In the wake of the deadly rally, President Donald Trump told reporters that there were “very fine people, on both sides.” He continued, “[A]nd I'm not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally. But you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists, okay?”
The left spent the better part of the next decade taking Trump’s comments out of context, claiming the president had classified neo-Nazis and white nationalists as “very fine people.” President Joe Biden even said he launched his 2020 presidential campaign because of what he saw in Charlottesville.
Well, it turns out the civil rights group allegedly paid at least one so-called “field source” who helped organize the “Unite the Right” event. “That field source made racist postings under the supervision of the SPLC and helped coordinate transportation to the event for several attendees,” the indictment explains. The SPLC allegedly attempted to hide its field source payments by opening bank accounts “connected to a series of fictitious entities.”
“The covert nature of the accounts allowed the SPLC to disguise the true nature, source, ownership, and control of the fraudulently obtained donated money the SPLC paid the field sources,” the indictment states. “In order to keep the scheme going, the SPLC made a series of false statements related to the operation of the accounts.”
Since the Charlottesville rally, Democrats have frequently highlighted the event as evidence that white supremacy is a widespread threat. Nearly 10 years after the SPLC allegedly helped manufacture the protest, Democrats referenced the “Unite the Right” rally in a Senate Resolution aimed at “condemning white supremacy.”
In response to the Grand Jury’s charges, the organization's Interim President and CEO, Bryan Fair, defended its use of “paid confidential informants,” which he said were used to “gather credible intelligence on extremely violent groups.” “This use of informants was necessary because we are no stranger to threats of violence,” Fair said.
Targeting Conservatives
The SPLC claims to monitor hate groups and ideologies, which apparently include a range of prominent conservative individuals and groups. On the nonprofit's website under Extremists, Groups, and Ideologies, it lists Racist Skinhead, White Nationalist, Neo-Nazi, Ku Klux Klan alongside PragerU, Matt Walsh, Moms for Liberty, and Tucker Carlson, among others.
Late last year, FBI Director Kash Patel slammed the SPLC after announcing that the bureau had cut ties with the organization: “The Southern Poverty Law Center long ago abandoned civil rights work and turned into a partisan smear machine.”
That smear machine must double as a money printer: the SPLC’s revenue before Charlottesville was $51,871,438. After? It skyrocketed to $133,463,398. There’s apparently a lot of money to be made in fighting hate by spreading hate.
