ABOUT TIME: SPLC Under Criminal DOJ Investigation

The U.S. Department of Justice announced an indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center, accusing the group of covertly directing millions to individuals tied to white supremacist and other extremist organizations.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said SPLC used paid operatives within extremist circles to incite and intensify racial tensions, arguing the group fostered the very threats it claimed to fight. A federal grand jury in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama brought 11 charges against the nonprofit, including six counts of wire fraud, four counts of bank fraud, and one count of money laundering.

Blanche told reporters that the organization paid at least $3 million between 2014 and 2023 to eight individuals, including people linked to the Ku Klux Klan and U.S.-based Nazi groups.

“As the indictment describes, the SPLC was not dismantling these groups, it was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred,” Blanche said at a news conference Tuesday.

CEO Bryan Fair said investigators appear to be examining the SPLC’s prior use of confidential informants to gather intelligence on violent extremist groups, according to the Associated Press. Fair said the organization deployed informants to monitor credible threats and, in some cases, shared that information with local and federal law enforcement. Fair defended the program, saying the SPLC operated in an era marked by violent attacks and systemic failures to protect civil rights activists.

“When we began working with informants, we were living in the shadow of the height of the Civil Rights Movement, which had seen bombings at churches, state-sponsored violence against demonstrators, and the murders of activists that went unanswered by the justice system,” Fair said. “There is no question that what we learned from informants saved lives.”

When asked about the criminal investigation into the Southern Poverty Law Center, Republican Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett said he supported the move and accused the group of drifting from its original mission.

“I think it’s probably a wise move. They’ve kind of shifted their course. They’ve become, in my opinion, very anti-American, and it’s good. But yeah, I think they’ve really gotten off course, as a lot of those liberal groups do,” Burchett said.

The SPLC drew renewed scrutiny following the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk last year. SPLC named TPUSA as a hate group in its 2024 annual report, placing the organization on its list of extremist-designated groups. Kirk was assassinated just months after the SPLC had placed TPUSA on its “hate map.”

Prior to his assassination, Kirk pushed back on the designation, telling Laura Ingraham that the SPLC had placed student chapters of his organization alongside the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazi groups on its hate-group listings. Kirk warned that the SPLC’s labeling carries real-world consequences.

“Remember that there was a shooter that went to the Family Research Council years ago, inspired by the SPLC list. This is them trying to make us basically surrender at Turning Point USA,” Kirk said in May 2025.

In October, the FBI severed ties with SPLC. FBI Director Kash Patel said the agency cut ties after concluding that the SPLC’s “hate map” and political advocacy made it unsuitable as a law enforcement partner.

“The Southern Poverty Law Center long ago abandoned civil rights work and turned into a partisan smear machine,” Patel wrote on X. “Their so-called ‘hate map’ has been used to defame mainstream Americans and even inspired violence. That disgraceful record makes them unfit for any FBI partnership.”

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