The Spurious Indictment of Southern Poverty Law Center

By Jessie Seigel / May 13, 2026

Southern Poverty Law Center's civil rights memorial

Our country has finally slammed through Alice’s looking glass.

Evil is good. Good is evil.

The Trump regime, which is backed by white supremacist extremists and in return backs them—even giving pardons to January 6 terrorists so they can continue to terrorize—has just indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), claiming it secretly used its donors’ money to promote that extremism.

The indictment alleges wire fraud, false statements and conspiracy to commit money launder in support of the activities SPLC publicly opposes. Specifically, the indictment claims that SPLC “secretly funneled more than $3 million in donated funds to individuals who were associated with various violent extremist groups including: the Ku Klux Klan; United Klans of America; Unite the Right; National Alliance; National Socialist Movement; Aryan Nations affiliated Sadistic Souls Motorcycle Club; National Socialist Party of America (American Nazi Party); and American Front.”

The sliminess of this indictment is unspeakable.

For those who are not familiar with SPLC, that organization has done more than any other, except perhaps the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), to make white supremacist hate groups pay legally for their actions.

For decades, SPLC has tracked, infiltrated, and exposed violent hate groups across the nation.

As early as the 1980s, while the federal government sat on its hands, SPLC brought civil suits against the Ku Klux Klan and Aryan Nations on behalf of their victims. Its win in one early case bankrupted the Alabama Klan, putting it out of business.

Has SPLC, over the years, compensated informants who have infiltrated, attended extremist gatherings, provided them with internal documents, and reported to them on the activities of violent hate groups? Yes. But as former prosecutor, law professor, and MSNOW contributor Joyce Vance has written:

Prosecutors have presented those facts as evidence that the SPLC enabled extremism, when in fact, they suggest the SPLC was just very good at executing its mission. Infiltrating criminal operations only works if the group is unaware that the source is cooperating with law enforcement, or in this case, a private entity collecting information. That part is obvious. And informants frequently continue participating in organizations while providing intelligence; that’s what makes them so valuable. This isn’t evidence of the SPLC’s ideological alignment with the hate groups it works to expose. It is the entire premise of undercover and intelligence operations.

The SPLC has a long history of cooperating with and offering training to law enforcement agencies. Over the years, it has provided them information on the history, background, leaders and activities of far-right extremist groups.

But this administration is in bed with right wing extremists. It is supported by them. It appears to employ them or those who are fellow travelers. So, is it any wonder, then, that Kash Patel’s FBI and Todd Blanche’s so-called Department of Justice (DOJ) would now target the SPLC?

In response to the DOJ's indictment, SPLC has filed two motions. The first asks the court to address false statements by the government and to enforce rules prohibiting the government from making prejudicial statements outside of the court proceeding.

The second motion points out the likelihood that DOJ’s false statements led to the indictment by grossly misleading the Grand Jury.  

One example cited by SPLC:

The indictment repeatedly alleges the SPLC sought to promote the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in August 2017 … Acting Attorney General Blanche said publicly that the government had ‘no information’ that ‘suggests that’ the SPLC ‘then turned around and shared what they learned with law enforcement’ from the informant program.'

However, as Joyce Vance adroitly has pointed out, not only does SPLC's motion maintain that they did share what they learned with law enforcement, “they seem to have the receipts—the FBI’s Mobile, Alabama field office, the same office whose agents worked on the criminal indictment, received a 45-page intelligence product from SPLC before the rally.”

In other words, Trump’s DOJ is adding SPLC to its malicious pursuit of spurious indictments against all opponents, already including Senator Mark Kelly, former FBI Director James Comey, and New York Attorney-General Letitia James. And, in the case of SPLC, bringing Trump’s tactic of projection—accusing his opponent of what he himself actually has done—to a new low. One must ask, what organization will be next--the Anti-Defamation League? The American Civil Liberties Union?

It is likely that this sham prosecution will fail. But it constitutes yet another political abuse of power in the Trump regime's battle to silence any who oppose its reconstitution of a white supremacist state.