Civil rights group accused of funding extremists

Michael Loria

USA TODAY

Department of Justice officials announced April 21 that they have filed an indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center, a well-known civil rights organization, on charges in connection with 'not dismantling extremism but funding it.'

According to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel, the Montgomery, Alabama-based organization was funneling millions of dollars to organizations including the Ku Klux Klan and the Nationalist Socialist Party of America.

'SPLC paid members of these extremist groups,' Blanche told reporters on April 21. 'To that end, it was doing the exact opposite of what it told its donors it was doing, not dismantling extremism but funding it.'

A Southern Poverty Law Center spokesperson said they had not seen the charges against the organization.

Charges against the Law Center include several counts of wire fraud and of making false statements to a federally insured bank. The civil rights group set up bank accounts under code names to pay informants, according to the indictment.

The federal indictment of the group known for defending victims of the KKK and other violent, racially charged crimes comes hours after the group’s CEO put out a statement signaling they knew they were under DOJ investigation and 'will not be intimidated.'

'We will not be intimidated into silence or contrition and we will not abandon our mission or the communities we serve,' said CEO Bryan Fair. 'This moment in history finds Americans in a critical struggle between those who continue to pull and bend the arc of history toward justice and those who resist progress.'

Fair added, 'We will vigorously defend ourselves, our staff, and our work.'

The civil rights group leader indicated he expected the DOJ investigation would focus on the organization’s use of paid confidential informants, a hallmark of the risks informants took in sharing information about violent hate groups.

'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.'

The civil rights group was founded in 1971 and became a notable opponent of the KKK. Amid the rise of extremism online, the organization has transformed its operation to pursue lawsuits against alt-right figures for sharing antisemitic hate on the internet.

'The investigation into the Southern Poverty Law Center is yet another example of the Trump administration’s extreme attempts to silence its critics,' American Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Anthony D. Romero said in a statement.

ACLU leaders have warned for months that the White House would go after civil liberties groups it deemed were political opponents, especially after Trump signed a memorandum in October titled 'Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence,' known as NSPM-7.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche brought charges against the Southern Poverty Law Center on April 21, alleging that it had funneled money to extremist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan.

Annabelle Gordon/REUTERS