A federal grand jury in Alabama's Middle District indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center on 11 counts, including wire fraud, false statements to banks, and conspiracy to conceal money laundering, for allegedly funneling over $3 million from 2014 to 2023 to informants in groups like the Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations, and National Alliance. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche accused the nonprofit of 'manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred.'
The indictment, returned Tuesday, claims the Montgomery-based SPLC—founded in 1971 to combat white supremacists through litigation—used fictitious entities like the Center Investigative Agency, Fox Photography, and Rare Books Warehouse to disguise payments in a now-defunct informant program dating to the 1980s, known internally as 'the Fs.' Specific sources included F-37, who received over $270,000 and helped plan the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville under SPLC supervision, including racist postings and transportation; F-9, paid more than $1 million over two decades while fundraising for the neo-Nazi National Alliance; and F-30, a former leader in the National Socialist Party of America and Aryan Nations, who got over $70,000 while featured on the SPLC's Extremist Files webpage. Prosecutors allege the group defrauded donors by lying about dismantling extremists while funding their leaders, with false statements to banks. FBI Director Kash Patel stated the SPLC used donor money 'to actually pay the leadership of these very groups.' The SPLC has faced criticism for labeling conservative organizations like Moms for Liberty and Alliance Defending Freedom as hate groups alongside neo-Nazis, designations relied on by media and firms like PayPal after Charlottesville. Interim President Bryan Fair called the probe focused on past informant use for intelligence shared with law enforcement, stating 'what we learned from informants saved lives' amid Civil Rights-era dangers. The group vowed to defend vigorously, calling allegations false.
