Justice Department hits Southern Poverty Law Center with criminal charges; suggests SPLC's paid informants were actually 'manufacturing extremism'

It will be interesting to see what the grand jury saw in order to charge them with bank fraud and money laundering. Inciting riots and hiding that fact from donors is serious business.

Sued by the DOJ?

They must be doing good work.

Fantine said:

Sued by the DOJ?

They must be doing good work.

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must be - look at who they are doing business with!

Between 2014 and 2023, the SPLC secretly funneled more than $3 million in donated funds to individuals who were associated with various violent extremist groups including:

• 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)
• American Front

According to the indictment, the objective of the scheme and artifice was to obtain money via donations through materially false representations and omissions about what the donated funds would be used for.

essentialsaltes said:

[Acting AG] Blanche said the DOJ’s investigation found that the organization had been paying people in various leadership positions in alleged hate groups, “manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred,” and then hiding those payments.

The 11-count indictment from a federal grand jury charges the group with six counts of wire fraud, four counts of bank fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering, Blanche said.

Earlier in the day, the head of SPLC said it was being "targeted" in a criminal investigation that appeared to focus on the group's use of confidential informants that gathered evidence on "extremely violent groups."

[interim CEO] Fair said SPLC's confidential sources had “risked their lives to infiltrate and inform on the activities of our nation’s most radical and violent extremist groups,” and provided information to the FBI which “saved lives.” For decades SPLC has used civil lawsuits to combat white supremacist groups.

Recounting the organization's fight against white supremacy and other forms of injustice, Fair said the SPLC was "unsurprised to be the latest organization targeted by this administration, they have made no secret of who they want to protect and who they want to destroy."

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What is quite odd about this indictment on first reading is that the alleged "$3M" of money laundered to these sources is only charged by $14,000 in payments to 6 informants/infiltrators in amounts that would seem entirely consistent of what the SPLC claims they are doing and how the solicit fund from donors.

Is it me, or is there a trend with the Trump DOJ as far a who is gone after, and who is protected?

essentialsaltes said:

It seems to me that paying field sources 'on the inside' to get intel on these groups counts as fighting these groups (and so it is not a "materially false representation" to say the donated money will be used to fight these groups).

Are our intelligence services aiding and abetting terrorism by using and paying such sources in terrorist organizations?

We'll see what the courts make of it.

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This is not a government organization legally authorized to gather intelligence, this is a private group required to comply with the banking laws and other laws of our country.

essentialsaltes said:

It seems to me that paying field sources 'on the inside' to get intel on these groups counts as fighting these groups (and so it is not a "materially false representation" to say the donated money will be used to fight these groups).

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And one of these “informants” was worth a million dollars? Uh-huh.

essentialsaltes said:

How much would they have to pay you to steal 25 boxes of sensitive information from a group of violent extremists?

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The going rate is actually rather low. Informants are usually paid less. The amount alone is enough to question the informant angle.

Tuur said:

The going rate is actually rather low. Informants are usually paid less. The amount alone is enough to question the informant angle.

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Which amount?

essentialsaltes said:

It seems to me that paying field sources 'on the inside' to get intel on these groups counts as fighting these groups (and so it is not a "materially false representation" to say the donated money will be used to fight these groups).

Are our intelligence services aiding and abetting terrorism by using and paying such sources in terrorist organizations?

We'll see what the courts make of it.

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They weren't 'paying field sources'. they literally were paying leaders inside these organizations, and instructing them what racist stuff to say, post, and do.

Fantine said:

Sued by the DOJ?

They must be doing good work.

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While some of the silly prosecutions (e.g. Comey, where they weren't even able to explain how Comey's statement was even a lie) give reason to be skeptical of the ones that Trump was more directly behind, one cannot simply write off the whole DOJ. A large percent of the people at the DOJ--which is a network of groups spread across the whole country--was there before Trump took office and most of the work of the DOJ really doesn't change based on the President. Most of the people or entities who have gotten charged by the DOJ after Trump won would have most likely also gotten charged for the same things if Harris had won, because most of the work of the DOJ is the same regardless of who the President or Attorney General is.

That said, obviously there are some prosecutions that would be different, and some different points of emphasis, and the question is whether this one is. Well, looking at the indictment, the person who brought this was Acting Attorney Kevin P. Davidson. His profile on the DOJ page says that he's been at the DOJ since 2012 (meaning he joined under Obama) and became an Acting United States Attorney in August of 2024, before Trump was even in office. There was another attorney who signed onto it, Russell T. Duraski. I don't know as much about him, but he's been at the DOJ since at least August of 2024 given he prosecuted a case for them then and several since (there might've been some earlier ones too that I didn't see). So again someone who was there before Trump took office.

This isn't a Lindsey Halligan situation where they had to fire the veteran prosecutor who didn't want to bring the case and bring in a loyalist who had never prosecuted before for a case which no other attorney in the district was interested in signing their name onto; this is someone who's been at the DOJ for 14 years under Obama, Trump, and Biden (and became the Acting Attorney under Biden).

This was apparently the result of an FBI investigation, and someone could claim that the FBI under Kash Patel was looking specifically for things to go after the SPLC for... but even if that is the case, it's entirely possible for an investigation to be motivated by personal animus and still uncover an actual crime.

Looking through the indictment and reading some commentary, I have some questions about the strength of its case, but one can judge only so much based on a simple indictment. Presumably better information will come out in the future to better analyze it. Still, the fact the prosecutors who brought the case were in the DOJ before Trump was ever President (at least one of them having been in there for more than a decade, and gaining their current position under Biden) means it seems wrong to immediately jump to the idea that getting sued by the DOJ under Trump means you're not guilty.

Is it illegal to pay someone money to keep tabs on various political organizations?

This would be news to me.

The White House churns out so many real misdeeds every day that "manufactured" evidence is not needed.

Being a White Christian Male (WCM) my facebook feed is PILLED right up with every manner of stuff I actually abhor.

The number of self righteous fools on there who have misunderstood a poorly written article and don't understand what the word "undercover" means....it's so tiring.