U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel on Tuesday announced a sweeping indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), an infamous left-wing nonprofit known for slandering right-wing groups and figures as “white supremacists” and terrorists.
On Tuesday, April 21, a federal grand jury in the U.S. District Court in Montgomery, Alabama, returned an 11-count indictment against the SPLC. The charges consist of six counts of wire fraud, four counts of bank fraud, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.
The indictment centers on the SPLC’s use of paid informants, internally referred to as “field sources” or “the Fs.” Prosecutors allege that, between 2014 and 2023, the organization paid at least $3 million to eight individuals affiliated with designated extremist groups.
These groups include the Ku Klux Klan, the United Klans of America, the National Socialist Party of America, the Aryan Nations-affiliated Sadistic Souls Motorcycle Club, and the American Front. One informant received more than $1 million while affiliated with the neo-Nazi National Alliance, while another was identified as the Imperial Wizard of the United Klans of America.
One specific example cited by prosecutors involves approximately $270,000 paid over eight years to a member of the leadership group that planned the 2017 Unite the Right protest in Charlottesville, Virginia.
According to the Justice Department, the SPLC’s paid informants “engaged in the active promotion of racist groups at the same time that the SPLC was denouncing the same groups on its website.” Prosecutors stated that donor funds were used to support the very extremism the organization claimed to oppose, without proper disclosure to contributors.
The indictment further contends that the SPLC created bank accounts in the names of at least five fictitious organizations with no legitimate business purpose. Funds were allegedly routed from the SPLC through sham accounts and then loaded onto prepaid cards for distribution to the recipients. This structure is said to have concealed the source of the payments from financial institutions and donors.
“The SPLC was not dismantling these groups. It was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred,” Attorney General Blanche said during a press conference Tuesday. “It was doing the exact opposite of what it told its donors it was doing, not dismantling extremism, but funding it to carry out this scheme,” he added.
Both Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel further described how the group set up bank accounts in the name of fictitious organization in order to disperse the funding. “They set up shell companies and entities around America so that the financial institutions that we rely on as everyday Americans were deceived in believing that money was not coming from the Southern Poverty Law Center in the perpetration of this scheme and fraud, but rather fictitious entities. They stood up to perpetuate this ongoing fraud,” Patel said.
“This is a serious and egregious violation of a group that purported to dismantle violent extremist groups, but in turn actually only fueled that hatred.”
As of the announcement, no individual employees have been named as defendants in the public filings
Founded in 1971 and based in Montgomery, Alabama, the SPLC claims to conduct research and pursue litigation against “hate groups.”
The SPLC has drawn criticism for expanding its monitoring activities beyond violent extremists to include a wider array of conservative and religious organizations. Critics contend that the group’s “hate map” and public designations have labeled mainstream groups — such as those advocating restrictions on immigration or traditional family values — as “extremist.”
For example, the SPLC lists groups like Turning Point USA, Moms For Liberty and Prager U as “hate” groups. This “research” is then cited by Democrat politicians when advocating for restrictions against their political opponents.
