The Department of Justice announced a federal grand jury indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center, charging the organization with using donor money to pay leaders of racist groups like the Ku Klux Klan, United Klans of America and the Aryan Nation’s affiliated Sadistic Souls Motorcycle Club.
While the SPLC claimed to work to dismantle these groups, raising millions of dollars in the process, the indictment alleges:
Between 2014 and 2023, the SPLC secretly funneled more than $3 million in SPLC funds to FS [field sources] who were associated with various violent extremist groups.
Focus on the Family President Jim Daly responded to the indictment, saying:
Do you see how diabolical the SPLC tactics have proven to be?
Declare your group the leading fighter against hate and then broaden the definition of hate so widely as to include any group that politically or even morally sees things differently. Then take some of the donor money you’ve already raised and use it to hire thugs who will manufacture and fan that hate.
Attorney and political commentator Jeff Childers used colorful language to describe the enormity of the charges against a leading leftist organization with an estimated $800 million dollars in assets. Childers called the organization the “nerve center” of “the left wing’s corpulent malevolent body,” adding:
By criminally indicting the SPLC, the Department of Justice shot an arrow straight into the progressive establishment’s throbbing, black brain. Its squid-like body is about to thrash all over the deck. Get ready. (His emphasis.)
FBI Director Kash Patel and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the charges on April 21 at the U.S. Department of Justice. Blanche said:
In the Middle District of Alabama, a grand jury returned an 11-count indictment charging the Southern Poverty Law Center with six counts of wire fraud, four counts of bank fraud, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.
According to the charges in the indictment, the SPLC is a nonprofit entity that purports to fight white supremacy and racial hatred by reporting on extremist groups and conducting research to inform law enforcement groups with the goal of dismantling these groups.
However, as Blanche went on to explain:
The SPLC was not dismantling these groups. It was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred.
In one instance, SPLC funding led to death and destruction, as the acting AG stated:
The indictment describes this conduct in detail, but one troubling example is that the SPLC was paying a member of the leadership group that planned the Unite the Right protest in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, that resulted in the death of one person and injured dozens more.
The indictment said the SPLC secretly paid a field source $270,000 to help plan and coordinate what became a deadly event.
The organization set up fake businesses with fake bank accounts to pay “field sources” working with extremist groups millions of dollars. Childers succinctly commented:
We might call that a “left-wing laundromat.” The indictment calls it both “money laundering” and a “conspiracy to commit money laundering.” (His emphasis.)
He explained the group’s motives – if they really were trying to shut down dangerous organizations – didn’t matter:
It is not legal for a private citizen or company to fund criminals. Not even as informants. You can’t cosplay as a cop and start making citizen’s arrests when somebody cuts you off in traffic. And you definitely can’t pay neo-Nazis to organize violent rallies. Even if you mean well. (His emphasis.)
The SPLC, founded in 1971 by Morris Dees, initially focused on civil rights legislation and on filing lawsuits against white supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. Dees was fired in 2019, following allegations of racial discrimination and sexual misconduct.
The radical organization broadened its reach in 2010 to target Christian and conservative groups that promote God’s design for marriage, sexuality and relationships. In a report titled “18 Anti-Gay Groups and Their Propaganda,” the SPLC defamed mainstream organizations like Concerned Women for America, Coral Ridge Ministries, Family Research Council and Liberty Counsel as “hate groups.”
That list grew and grew, and the SPLC finally added Focus on the Family to its “Hatewatch” list in May 2025.
Expanding the SPLC’s “hate group” list also expanded its donor base, bringing in millions from celebrities and businesses.
But being known as a “designated hate group,” as if it were some sort of objective, impartial classification, had harmful real-world consequences for these conservative and Christian groups.
Media outlets robotically repeated the “hate group” designation ad nauseam, damaging reputations, hindering fundraising, and causing loss of business or tech support. In addition, the FBI used the SPLC’s biased information in law enforcement efforts for 18 years.
The SPLC’s notorious “Hate Map” also contributed to acts of violence against conservative Christian groups and individuals.
In 2012, an LGBT supporter named Floyd Lee Corkins entered the offices of the Family Research Organization, a pro-family, pro-life group based in Washington D.C., bent on murdering as many employees there as possible. He was stopped by the building manager, who was shot in the process. Corkins confessed that he looked at the SPLC “hate map” to obtain FRC’s name and location.
In 2017, Congressman Steve Scalise was severely wounded by a shooter who targeted Republicans at a softball practice. The shooter turned out to be a Facebook fan of the SPLC, which had strongly criticized Scalise.
Childers is hopeful that “the SPLC does not survive this case as an organization.”
SPLC CEO told Fox News Digital, “We are outraged by the false allegations levied against SPLC – an organization that for 55 years has stood as a beacon of hope fighting white supremacy and various forms of injustice to create a multi-racial democracy where we can all live and thrive.”
Patel said the investigation was ongoing “against all individuals involved.”
Related articles and resources:
Department of Justice: Acting AG Blanche, FBI Director Patel Announce Charges Against Southern Poverty Law Center
Alliance Defending Freedom; Slandered for Christ’s Sake
Cleaning House at the Southern Poverty Law Center
Court: It’s Not Defamation to Call a Ministry a ‘Hate Group’
Southern Poverty Law Center Finally Names Focus on the Family a Hate Group
SPLC Continues to Label Conservative Christian Organizations as ‘Hate Groups’