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The Southern Poverty Law Center told donors it was fighting extremism and racism. But the US Justice Department now alleges it illegally funnelled millions to fund the KKK, cross burnings, and neo-Nazi recruitment — the very movements it publicly condemned.

Following on a bombshell indictment filed earlier this year, the Department of Justice (DOJ) is charging that the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) funnelled millions of dollars to extremist groups like the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) to fund cross-burnings.

The DOJ announced in April that a federal grand jury in Alabama had returned an 11-count indictment against the SPLC, charging the left-wing organisation with wire fraud, bank fraud, and money laundering related to siphoning more than $3 million in donor funds to “informants” inside groups like the KKK, Aryan Nations, and American Front. On Tuesday, the grand jury returned a superseding indictment expanding on the original charges.

SPLC Paid for KKK Hoods & Cross-Burning Supplies

According to Tuesday’s indictment, the SPLC paid “informants” in extremist groups more than $4 million via “covert” bank accounts “connected to a series of fictitious entities” between 2010 and 2023.

The indictment charges that the SPLC used millions of dollars in donor funds to pay “informants” to attend, host, and promote extremist group rallies and events; support existing chapters of extremist groups, found new chapters, and expand those chapters by recruiting new members; donate to extremist groups and their leaders; “Purchase materials for cross burnings; Purchase materials to make Ku Klux Klan robes and hoods; Create racist paraphernalia that extremist groups sold at rallies; Publish extremist literature used in the recruiting of more members; and Pay everyday living expenses” for informants so that they could focus on their extremist groups full-time, without needing to find regular jobs.

Funding Extremist Groups While Saying It Was Seeking to Dismantle Them

The SPLC told donors that it was using funds to “dismantle” extremist groups, while actually using those funds to continue grifting, funding more extremist groups in order to ask donors for more money.

According to the indictment, the SPLC’s reported revenue increased from $38,712,628 in 2010 to $129,069,290 in 2023, an “increase of approximately 233%.” In order to hide the funds that it was funnelling to violent extremist organisations, the SPLC opened bank accounts for at least nine “fictitious” companies, including fake technology companies, photography businesses, and booksellers. “These fictitious entities were never incorporated, had no bona fide employees, and conducted no legitimate business,” the indictment states. At least two top SPLC employees, including a chief financial officer, managed the fraudulent bank accounts and passed donors’ money to extremist organisation members.

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said in an interview Thursday, “I think it’s very serious when you’re talking about bank fraud, but this is kind of like Al Capone. They got him on tax evasion, but there was so much more to his criminal empire. And this is really just the tip of the iceberg with the SPLC.”

Why the SPLC Wants Extremist Groups to Succeed

In 2012, an armed man named Floyd Lee Corkins entered FRC headquarters in Washington, D.C. in an attempt to carry out a mass shooting. He said that he had chosen FRC because the SPLC named the conservative, Christian organisation on its “hate list.” Referring to this event, Perkins commented,

“The white supremacist groups had pretty much dried out, there wasn’t much money to be made. [SPLC] had to prop them up because it’s more than just fundraising, what they were doing is they were propping up these groups, these extremist groups, so that they could then put conservative groups next to them on their extremist list or hate list and raise money off of that.”

He continued,

“More than that, at the same time, they were committing bank fraud. What they were doing was working with banks to debank conservative and Christian organisations.”

“This is the tip of the iceberg. There is so much more beneath the surface here with the Southern Poverty Law Center, and I commend the Department of Justice for investigating [them],” Perkins said, calling on Congress to investigate further.

“There’s a broader conspiracy here with the Left. They have been used as the attack dog to go after effective conservative Christian organisations that have stood in the way of the Left’s radical agenda, and there is so much to be discovered here.”

He added, “The Southern Poverty Law Center is a dangerous entity. They’ve been linked in federal court to domestic terrorist activity. They need to be shut down.”

Funding Criminal Activity

In one egregious example of covert abuse of donor funds, an SPLC “informant” embedded in the “neo-Nazi” organisation National Alliance broke into National Alliance headquarters, stole “approximately 25 boxes of documents,” transported those documents across state lines, used SPLC funds to copy those documents, broke into headquarters again to return the documents, and paid another National Alliance member $6,000 in SPLC funds to take the blame for the break-in, once discovered.

The SPLC used the stolen documents, knowing that they were stolen, as the basis for a story published on its “Hatewatch” program.

Furthermore, the director of SPLC’s Intelligence Project, who oversaw payments to the “informant,” was romantically involved with the National Alliance “informant.” The two shared a house and the SPLC employee used donor money funnelled into a joint bank account that the two shared to pay their basic living expenses.

Paying Extremists to Remain in Neo-Nazi Groups

In another instance, the leader of the National Socialist Party of America (NSPA), who was an SPLC “informant” also affiliated with the KKK and an Aryan Nations chapter, approached the SPLC and asked for help leaving the extremist groups.

Instead of helping him, the SPLC offered him a monthly “salary” of $2,500 and payment of various expenses to continue running the NSPA.

He was also provided with donor funds to write and publish racist tracts and literature, create and sell racist and neo-Nazi paraphernalia, recruit new members, and host extremist rallies and events.

All the while, the SPLC dedicated one of its “Extremist Files” webpages to the “informant,” who asked the SPLC to “soften the language about him on his ‘Extremist File’ webpage so that it would not scare off new members from joining his extremist organisation,” according to the indictment.

“The SPLC employee agreed and changed the language” on its website.

Paying KKK Members to Recruit, Make KKK Robes, Hoods and Perform Cross Burnings

In yet another example, two KKK members, who were paid SPLC “informants,” approached the SPLC in 2010, asking for help leaving the extremist group and saying that they feared for their safety.

The SPLC arranged a meeting with the two Klan members and, instead of helping them, “encouraged” them “to stay in the movement and offered to pay them a $1,200.00 monthly salary as well as to pay for expenses incurred.”

The two Klan members were provided a salary from the SPLC’s fraudulent “Rare Books Warehouse” bank account and were instructed to tell others, if asked, that they work for Rare Books, where they “help college students research and write essays.”

SPLC donor money was used to recruit and train new Klan members and purchase materials for making KKK robes and hoods for new recruits, all with the knowledge of SPLC employees.

The two Klan members were “reimbursed by the SPLC with donor money for all expenses they incurred for cross-burning events to include the wood and fuel used,” according to the indictment.

One of the two Klan members eventually rose to a prominent leadership position in his KKK chapter.

Paying Extremists to Source More Donor Funds to ‘Fight’ Those Same Extremists

The SPLC also used hundreds of thousands of dollars in donor funds to pay the chairman of the neo-Nazi National Alliance, the president of the American Front, the Imperial Wizard of the United Klans of America, officers of the National Socialist Movement, and members of the Aryan Nations-aligned Sadistic Souls Motorcycle Club, often featuring the paid individuals in their “Extremist Files” and actively citing the threat posed by these individuals when soliciting donations.

Funding the ‘Unite the Right’ Rally

The SPLC also paid more than $300,000 to an individual who organised the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. The individual was not a member of any extremist organisation, according to the indictment, but approached the SPLC seeking employment.

At the direction of SPLC employees, the individual began making racially incendiary posts on social media and played a role in organising the “Unite the Right” rally. He also used SPLC funds to secure transportation for attendees.

The SPLC benefitted financially following the “Unite the Right” rally, which the indictment alleges “led to a massive fundraising windfall for the SPLC…”

The organisation “more than doubled their previous year’s reported revenue from private and corporate donations following the ‘Unite the Right’ rally.

The SPLC did not disclose to its donors that it used donors’ money to pay” for the organisation and attendance of the event.

SPLC: Deceptive and Dangerous

Chris Gacek, senior fellow for Regulatory Affairs at FRC, has been studying the SPLC and its deceptive, dangerous practices for years.

He told The Washington Stand, “The DOJ’s ‘superseding’ indictment of the SPLC provides more details than the first version. In the big picture, these details devastate the SPLC narrative that everybody runs their counter-intelligence division this way.”

Gacek continued, “Actually, this was far more than a way to get more fundraising. The SPLC begins to have the look of a revolutionary anarchist organisation that systematically sows strife, division, and animosity to bring about a violent revolution.”

“This is evil stuff. I want the DOJ to start telling us whether there was information sharing by SPLC with Antifa,” Gacek added.

“When does the SPLC just become a hub for conspiratorial social violence? The FBI needs to find out whether these field agents and organisations ever harmed anyone when the SPLC was funding them. That would be truly criminal activity.”

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Republished with thanks to The Washington Stand. Originally titled “DOJ: SPLC Paid for KKK Hoods & Cross-Burning Supplies, Paid Extremists Not to Leave Racist Groups”

Image via Wikimedia Commons.