The Department of Justice on Tuesday issued a stunning indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a public interest law firm representing purported victims of discrimination.
The indictment charges the SPLC with secretly funding some of the very “hate groups,” including Ku Klux Klan affiliates, that the SPLC tells its donors it is fighting against. According to the government, between 2014 and 2023, the SPLC paid over $3,000,000—laundered through bank accounts registered to fictitious entities—to insiders at those groups, often people in leadership positions.
Supporters of the SPLC will see the indictment as yet another vindictive Trump prosecution of a left-wing adversary. Haters will see it as overdue justice finally coming to a radical left nonprofit that worked with the Biden administration to target conservative parents and to call right-leaning Catholic organizations domestic terrorists.
But the question many will have is why—why on earth would the Southern Poverty Law Center, which all agree is sharply left-leaning, fund right-wing entities the SPLC itself calls hate groups?
The indictment offers no answer at all.
