United States Department of Justice Indicts the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)

According to the Grand Jury the SPLC covertly supported various hate groups and their leadership, while defrauding donors

Founded in 1971, the Southern Poverty Law Center or SPLC is most widely known for successfully implementing a litigation strategy to bankrupt white supremacist organizations and for its list of “hate groups” active in the United States. The SPLC won some landmark cases against white supremacist groups, including a $7 million judgment against the United Klans of America and a $6.3 million verdict against the Aryan Nations. In more recent years, the SPLC came under fire for falsely labeling mainstream conservative organizations as “hate groups.” Now, it has been indicted for using its members’ donations to financially support hate groups. Here is the latest.

The Southern Poverty Law Center

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) was formed in 1971 by attorneys Morris Dees, Joseph Levin and former Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee attorney-activist Julian Bond. Bond served as the organization’s first president.

The SPLC gained notoriety through its litigation strategy. The SPLC pioneered using lawsuits to target racist groups for acts of violence. As noted above, the SPLC obtained a $7 million verdict against the United Klans of America for the family of a young man lynched by Klansmen in 1981. In 1990, the SPLC obtained a $12.5 million verdict against White Aryan Resistance, among others, for the murder of an ethiopian man in Oregon. In 1999, the SPLC obtained a $6.3 million verdict against the Aryan Nations for a couple who were chased and shot at by Aryan Nations security guards. These are just a handful of the judgments obtained by the SPLC against Klan groups and other racist groups.

The SPLC is also widely known for its Hatewatch website, Extremist Files and reports wherein the SPLC monitors and reports on notable people and organizations it labels as “racist” or “hateful.” Many of these individuals are self-avowed racists, such as Klan leaders or Nazi leaders. The readiness of the SPLC to label people and organizations as “hateful,” and lump them in with the KKK or Nazis, led to controversy in many cases.

SPLC Labels Mainstream Conservatives as “Hate” Leaders

In 2014, the SPLC listed Christian conservative physician and politician Dr. Ben Carson in its Extremist Files, purportedly because of Dr. Carson’s views on gay marriage and other religious issues. The SPLC later removed Dr. Carson from the list and apologized.

The Family Research Council (FRC), a popular conservative Christian organization founded in 1983, was designated a “hate group” by the SPLC in 2010 for what the SPLC claims were “false claims about the LGBTQ community” and for allegedly seeking to dehumanize LGBTQ people. The Family Research Council forcefully responded to the SPLC’s label and blamed the SPLC for violence targeting FRC, including the 2012 shooting at the FRC office in Virginia by a lunatic angry about the FRC positions on gay marriage.

One false “hate” designation cost the SPLC millions of dollars. The SPLC was sued by Maajid Nawaz's Quilliam Foundation, after the SPLC listed the foundation in a field guide to anti-muslim extremists. Maajid Nawaz is a reformed Islamic radical who, individually and through the foundation he helped found, works to counter Islamic radicalism. The SPLC paid $3.375 Million to settle the case and issued a public apologize for falsely labeling the foundation as an anti-muslim extremist group.

Other “hate” designations made by the SPLC tarnished the group’s reputation, as the American Enterprise Institute reported:

The SPLC Indictment

The SPLC clearly over-reached and incorrectly labeled people and organizations as “hateful,” without much regard for the damage such labels do to one’s reputation. Now, the SPLC is in a much more difficult position than merely mislabeling someone. The recent DOJ indictment of the SPLC paints the picture of an organization funding and propping up hate groups so it may profit from opposing them.

The Indictment itself is an interesting read. It outlines some of the policies and activities of the SPLC.

According to the Indictment, since the 1980’s the SPLC used a network of paid informants to infiltrate violent, racist groups. Over time, this network of paid informants morphed into financial support for leadership of racist groups.

The Indictment alleges the SPLC actively sought out donations to “dismantle” hate groups, while using the money, in part, to “. . . pay leaders and others within these same violent extremists groups.”

Among the hate group leaders and organizers funded by SPLC were:

• A member of an online leadership group which planned the 2017 “Unite the Right” event in Charlottesville, Virginia. This hate leader made “racist posting under the supervision of the SPLC and helped coordinate transportation to the event for several attendees.” The Indictment alleges he was paid $270,000.00 for his efforts.

• A member of the neo-Nazi National Alliance who allegedly worked for the SPLC for over a decade. Between 2014 and 2023, this man was paid over $1,000,000.00 by the SPLC, including payments made for documents the man stole from the National Alliance.

• An officer in the National Socialist Movement who was paid over $300,000.00 by the SPLC between 2014 and 2020.

The Indictment outlines more similar payments, but these are illustrative.

Under the Indictment, the SPLC is charged as having:

Pursuant to this scheme the SPLC allegedly “. . . sought donations under the auspices that donor money would be used to help ‘dismantle’ violent extremist groups . . .,” without informing donors “. . . that some of the donated funds were to be used by SPLC to pay high-level leaders of violent extremist groups . . ..”

Acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche probably said it best at a press conference held on April 21, 2026:

To carry out this scheme, the Indictment alleges the SPLC used several fictitious entities to open bank accounts to hide the distribution of the money while making false statements to a federally insured bank. In addition, wire transfers were used to move the money around. The Indictment alleges:

Counts 1 through 6 of the Indictment consist of wire fraud charges under 18 USC 1343 for electronic financial transactions made in furtherance of the scheme.

Counts 7 through 10 consist of false statements to a federally insured bank under 18 USC 1014 for the misinformation provided by the SPLC to the banks where the accounts were opened for the fictitious entities.

Count 11 charges the SPLC with conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering under 18 USC 1956 for using the bank transactions with the fictitious entities to “conceal or disguise” the “source, ownership or the control of proceeds of specified unlawful activity.”

Finally, the Indictment seeks the forfeiture of the “gross receipts obtained, directly or indirectly” from the wire fraud charges (Counts 1-6) and the money laundering count (Count 11).

Needless to say, the SPLC had better days.

According to Brian Fair, the interim CEO of SPLC, the Indictment represents the weaponization of the federal government “to dismantle the rights of our most vulnerable people.” In a statement issued after the Indictment, Fair said the SPLC is “outraged by the false allegations” and that the paid informant program “saved lives.” He said the SPLC would “vigorously defend” itself against the charges.

On the Heels of Other Scandals

The Indictment comes at an inopportune time for the SPLC, which is no stranger to controversy and scandal. It has been sued several times for its “hate group” labels, including by the Center for Immigration Studies and D. James Kennedy Ministries, to name a couple (both suits were unsuccessful). In addition to the apologies issued by the SPLC to Dr. Ben Carson and the Quilliam Foundation mentioned above, the SPLC retracted “hate” designations and apologized to several journalists after publishing an article which purportedly labeled them as white supremacists, fascists, anti-Semites and working with or for Russian President Putin. The SPLC was also criticized for secretly suggesting the FBI should monitor Catholic groups through the group’s churches.

In 2019, SPLC co-founder Morris Dees was fired over then unspecified misconduct. Shortly after his ouster, the truth came out. According to employees, the SPLC engaged in long-standing racial and gender discrimination against blacks and women under the leadership of Dees. Dees was also accused of multiple reports of sexual harassment and of retaliating against accusers.

Conclusion

The Indictment sure paints a vivid picture of the SPLC as an organization secretly funding and promoting hate groups on the one hand, while profiting handsomely from the deeds and misdeeds of the hate groups on the other. But, an indictment is merely the government’s version of events. The SPLC will get to defend itself. And it will do so in Federal Court in the Middle District of Alabama. Regardless of the outcome of the case, the SPLC could stand a PR makeover.