SPLC Funneled Funds to Neo-Nazis, KKK in Covert Operation: Court Docs

MONTGOMERY, AL- As Law Enforcement Today reported earlier this week, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which touts itself as a bastion of anti-white supremacy activism, has been indicted by an Alabama grand jury for wire fraud, bank fraud, and money laundering. Those charges came in connection with the nonprofit funneling money to individuals connected with the very organizations it purported to oppose, The New York Post reported. 

According to charging documents, the SPLC is accused of funneling millions of dollars to at least eight leaders and members of hate groups, including a Ku Klux Klan Imperial Wizard and a fundraiser for a neo-Nazi group, to ostensibly act as informants for the organization. The so-called “field sources” were to infiltrate violent extremist groups, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel announced Wednesday, The Post reported. 

The indictment alleged that the field sources, or “Fs” were “secretly paid” by SPLC between 2014 and 2023. 

The use of confidential informants is routinely used by law enforcement agencies to secure either search or arrest warrants, but the use of paid informants by private organizations is virtually unheard of, a point driven home by America First Legal president Gene Hamilton, a former Department of Justice (DOJ) official, especially using donor funding that is supposed to be fighting so-called “violent white extremism.”

 “I’ve seen some leftists talking about, seen some chatter on social media and elsewhere saying, ‘Oh, this is a commonly used tactic amongst the government for years to infiltrate organizations,’” Hamilton said, drawing a difference between a private nonprofit and the government. 

“That’s one thing if it’s the government–the government can prosecute people,” Hamilton continued. He likened SPLC’s tactics to paying an arsonist to help put out the fire. 

“It’s mind-bogglingly dumb,” he said. 

 Liora Rez, founder of StopAntisemitism, slammed the SPLC and noted its work fighting against antisemitism has fallen in recent years. 

“It’s unimaginable to us that a civil rights group would gin up fake bigotry in order to solicit donations from concerned Americans,” he said. “If this is what the SPLC did, it is shameful and outrageous.” 

As one might expect, SPLC CEO, Bryan Fair, claims that the organization is being politically targeted and accused the administration of weaponizing the DOJ, which is rich after the Biden DOJ engaged in four years of lawfare against President Trump and conservatives. 

Fair claimed the payments were for “confidential informants to gather credible intelligence on extremely violent groups.” 

Conservative talk show host and Fox News host of "Life, Liberty and Levin," Mark Levin, explains the case against the SPLC:

According to FBI Director Patel, the SPLC attempted to hide its criminal activity from banking oversight and set up shell companies nationwide, deceiving banks and other financial institutions into believing the ill-gotten funds were not coming from that organization but from other companies. 

In a news release, the DOJ wrote, in part:

“In order to covertly pay the individuals, SPLC opened bank accounts connected to a series of fictitious entities. The covert nature of the accounts allowed the SPLC to disguise the true nature, source, ownership, and control of the fraudulently obtained donated money that the SPLC paid the individuals. In order to keep the scheme going, the SPLC made a series of false statements related to the operation of the accounts.” 

In other words, the SPLC appeared to know that what it was doing was illegal and took steps to cover it up. 

Among those bankrolled by the SPLC were:

• An “Imperial Wizard” of The United Klans of America, identified but not named; that group was claimed by the SPLC in 2013 as being responsible for the 1963 Street Baptist Church bombing that killed four young girls. 
• Another informant was part of an “online leadership chat group” organizing the 2017 “Unite the Right” white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., that turned violent with one woman killed and several injured; The informant posted racist comments at SPLC’s behest while coordinating rides for others to attend the rally. That event led to the so-called “fine people” hoax that Democrats laid upon President Trump during his first term and was used as a talking point for leftist Democrats to paint the president as a racist. That informant was paid $270,000 between 2015 and 2023, the indictment claims.
• A veteran informant from the neo-Nazi National Alliance was paid $1 million over the same period and helped SPLC by stealing 25 boxes of documents from the extremist group’s headquarters, the filing alleges. He worked as a fundraiser for the neo-Nazi group, the filing alleges. Those records served as a basis for a story on SPLC’s “Hatewatch” blog. SPLC later paid a second informant at the organization $6,000 to take the fall for the theft, the indictment claims. 
• Another informant was paid over $300,000 between 2014 and 2020 while serving as a National Socialist Movement officer and member of the Aryan Nations-affiliated Sadistic Souls Motorcycle Club, the indictment alleges. 
• A former chairman of the National Alliance received $140,000 from SPLC between 2016 and 2023 while being featured as part of SPLC’s “Extremist Files,” the indictment claims. 
• A former director of the Aryan Nations, also a Ku Klux Klan member, was also featured in the “Extremist Files” and was paid $70,000 between 2014 and 2016, according to the indictment. 
• A national president of the American Front, who was convicted of cross burning by the feds, received $19,000 from the SPLC between 2016 and 2019. 
• A so-called “Exalted Cyclops” from the KKK was outed as part of a prior court case for having received $3,500 from the SPLC, the filing claims. 
• An additional $160,000 was funneled to other violent extremist group leaders, including an ex-Grand Wizard of the Knights of the KKK, the papers allege. 

While some of this was going on, the Biden DOJ was using SPLC for assistance on cases in its Civil Rights Division and received exclusive access to federal hate crime databases. The Post previously reported this based on a FOIA records request by AFL. 

The Post reported that attorneys in the Civil Rights Division “often solicited SPLC officials' advice about issues they should be ‘tracking’ and even invited the left-wing nonprofit to attend quarterly departmental meetings.” 

“By propping up and paying these particular actors sums of money to do the very things that they were supposed to be combating, they create a narrative,” Hamilton said. “They create a justification for their existence and then they, you know, do some kind of government action.

“They’re very intimately connected with the Civil Rights Division and the FBI during the last administration, he continued, comparing it to the school board memo “that justified government action to go after parents” who were protesting education issues. That memo was pushed by the National School Board Association and was filtered out by former Attorney General Merrick Garland to the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Offices.

The SPLC targeted various conservatives and conservative groups they identified as white supremacists or white extremists, including Moms for Liberty, Catholics who attended traditional Latin mass, Turning Point USA, Charlie Kirk, and conservative podcaster Matt Walsh, among many others. 

Now we learn that the SPLC wasn’t operating from the standpoint of battling violent white extremism, as it was creating a narrative to assist Democrats in pushing that viewpoint, even going to the point of paying people to facilitate that extremism.