Southern Poverty Law Center charged with defrauding donors with payments to extremist informants

WASHINGTON (AP) — 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 civil rights group faces charges of wire fraud, bank fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering in the case brought in the federal court in Alabama, where the organization is based.

The indictment came shortly after the SPLC revealed the existence of a criminal investigation into its disbanded informant program to gather intelligence on extremist group activities. The group said the program was used to monitor threats of violence and the information was often shared with local and federal law enforcement.

The SPLC said it “will vigorously defend ourselves, our staff, and our work” against what it described as false allegations. The group said its informant program saved lives.

“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,” interim CEO and president Bryan Fair said in a statement. “The actions by the DOJ will not shake our resolve to fight for justice and ensure the promise of the Civil Rights Movement becomes a reality for all.”

A program that dated back to the 1980s

The Justice Department alleges the SPLC made false statements to banks in order to set up accounts used to funnel money to informants. The group created bank accounts for fictitious entities such as “Fox Photography” and “Rare Books Warehouse” that were used to send money from donors to informants, in a scheme to conceal the money’s actual purpose, the indictment alleges.

Prosecutors say the group never disclosed to donors details of the informant program.

“They’re required to under the laws associated with a nonprofit to have certain transparency and honesty in what they’re telling donors they’re going to spend money on and what their mission statement is and what they’re raising money doing,” Blanche said.

The indictment includes details on at least nine unnamed informants were paid by the SPLC through a secret program that prosecutors say began in the 1980s. Within the SPLC, they were known as field sources or “the Fs,” according to the indictment.

One informant was paid more than $1 million between 2014 and 2023 while affiliated with the neo-Nazi National Alliance, the indictment said. Prosecutors say another informant was a member of the “online leadership chat group” that planned the 2017 white nationalist “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The informant attended the rally at the direction of the SPLC, according to the indictment, and helped coordinate transportation for several others. That person was allegedly paid more than $270,000 between 2015 and 2013.

The SPLC said the program was kept quiet to protect the safety of informants.

“When we began working with informants, we were living in the shadow of the height of the Civil Rights Movement, which had seen bombings at churches, state-sponsored violence against demonstrators, and the murders of activists that went unanswered by the justice system,” Fair said. “There is no question that what we learned from informants saved lives.”

The center has been targeted by Republicans

The SPLC, which is based in Montgomery, Alabama, was founded in 1971 and used civil litigation to fight white supremacist groups. The nonprofit has become a popular target among Republicans who see it as overly leftist and partisan.

The investigation could add to concerns that Trump’s Republican administration is using the Justice Department to go after conservative opponents and his critics. It follows a number of other investigations into Trump foes that have raised questions about whether the law enforcement agency has been turned into a political weapon.

The SPLC has faced intense criticism from conservatives, who have accused it of unfairly maligning right-wing organizations as extremist groups because of their viewpoints. The center regularly condemns Trump’s rhetoric and policies around voting rights, immigration and other issues.

The center came under fresh scrutiny after the assassination last year of conservative activist Charlie Kirk brought renewed attention to its characterization of the group that Kirk founded and led. The center included a section on that group, Turning Point USA, in a report titled “The Year in Hate and Extremism 2024” that described the group as “A Case Study of the Hard Right in 2024.”

FBI Director Kash Patel said last year that the agency was severing its relationship with the center, which had long provided law enforcement with research on hate crime and domestic extremism. Patel said the center had been turned into a “partisan smear machine,” and he accused it of defaming “mainstream Americans” with its “hate map” that documents alleged anti-government and hate groups inside the United States.

House Republicans hosted a hearing centered on the SPLC in December, saying it coordinated efforts with President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration “to target Christian and conservative Americans and deprive them of their constitutional rights to free speech and free association.”

---

Boone reported from Boise, Idaho.

Read more: “Zero tolerance for fraud, waste, and abuse”: Gov Cox explains how officials prevent fraud in Utah