Investigating the Good Guys

DOJ claims the Southern Poverty Law Center was "paying off" the Ku Klux Klan. The group's track record and common sense suggest otherwise.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) was founded in 1971 in Montgomery, Alabama, by a lawyer named Morris Dees. His goal was to protect civil rights and combat hate groups. He went about it with precision, using a civil lawsuit to bankrupt and cripple the Ku Klux Klan in 1981, when other approaches, including criminal prosecution, failed to make headway.

So it makes sense that Kash Patel’s FBI would sever all ties with them, which happened last October. Until then, SPLC’s insightful intelligence product on domestic hate groups had been shared with the FBI and was widely viewed as being very helpful. They had access to information other groups, even law enforcement, didn’t have as they committed people and resources to programs like KlanWatch.

But apparently, that wasn’t enough. Tuesday morning, the interim President of the SPLC, Bryan Fair (full disclosure: my colleague at the University of Alabama School of Law), announced that the Center was under criminal investigation. Then, in a 5:30 p.m. press conference, DOJ announced it had indicted SPLC. Kash Patel called it “a massive sweeping indictment” charging fraud. The claim is the SPLC was paying the leadership of the hate groups it was keeping track of, and that it was defrauding its donors. He called it a “decade-long, multimillion-dollar” fraud, using the banking system and a series of fictitious entities to perpetuate the fraud. Only the Center is charged. No individuals are named, although Blanche said, “we’ll go from there,” and that it should be “obvious from the indictment that the investigation was ongoing.”

Todd Blanche, under questioning during the press conference, explained the case like this: The SPLC raised money to dismantle racism. It used some of the money to pay informants for information and access. When questioned about how a group like SPLC could be accused of supporting the very groups it was committed to disassembling, Blanche repeatedly said, “That’s what the grand jury found.” When pressed further, he explained that because the SPLC is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt entity, they have to disclose to donors what they’re going to do with money that they raise—and, per Blanche, they never said “we’re going to give a million bucks to the Ku Klux Klan,” so “that’s wire fraud.”

This is a speaking indictment with a story to tell; it’s an effort to rewire the public perception of a longstanding civil rights organization as a criminal enterprise, starting with headings like “The SPLC’s Paid Informants Network” and “The SPLC’s Fictitious Entities,” that sound ominous. Then we get to the charges:

• There are six counts of wire fraud, taking place on just a single day, April 25, 2023. Wire fraud is found in 18 U.S.C. § 1343 and involves the use of electronic communications like the internet, or, as here, a bank wire transaction, allegedly to intentionally deceive someone and steal money or property. The allegation is that SPLC

There are four counts of making false statements to a federally insured bank in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1014. The law prohibits knowingly making false statements or concealing material facts. The jury instructions used in the 11th Circuit explain that “The heart of the crime is the attempt to influence the action of the institution by [knowingly] [willfully] making a false statement or report. The Government does not have to prove that the institution was actually influenced or misled.”

• One count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, in violation of 18 U.S.C.1956(a)(1)(B)(i)

At first blush, these allegations feel like an extension of the revenge docket and the attacks on universities and law firms, an effort to delegitimize and marginalize an organization that is pushing back against the administration. We’ll have a chance to study the charges as we learn more about the government’s evidence. The government’s core theory is that the SPLC paid high-ranking white supremacists, but they seem to ignore the reason—that the use of paid informants was essential to the intelligence the Center was gathering on the groups they were members of, including intelligence that was shared with the FBI.

Just like the federal government pays cooperating witnesses, including some within white supremacist domestic terror groups, in order to prosecute crimes those groups commit, the SPLC used paid informants to obtain information. "Klanwatch" refers to a project established in 1981 to monitor, investigate, and litigate against the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist hate groups in the United States. It focused on exposing extremist activity and curbing racist violence through legal action. There are obvious reasons for not publicizing the fact that you are recruiting sources, and that you’re paying them to accomplish your goals. But the proof is in the pudding, and this is a group that not only tried to take down white supremacist groups, but it was also highly successful. Suggesting that they were taking action designed to enrich the informants they were paying for some nefarious, unspecified reasons would be silly if the consequences here weren’t so serious.

In his announcement this morning, which you can watch here, Fair, the acting president of the Center, acknowledged that it had sometimes used paid informants. But he defended the Center’s work. “We will not be intimidated into silence or contrition, and we will not abandon our mission,” Fair said. “We will vigorously defend ourselves, our staff, and our work.” This Justice Department—as Kash Patel said during the press conference, this was Donald Trump’s Justice Department going after “fraud”—sees fraud. But if you’re trying to infiltrate one of those groups, the kind of people willing to affiliate themselves with successor groups to the Klan, like Aryan Nation, League of the South, and the Army of God, paying for information is the logical path forward.

Expect a flurry of pre-trial motions from the defense, including ones to dismiss. If this case goes to trial, it will be up to a jury—a trial jury that will hear both sides of the case, not just the government’s side, which was presented to the grand jury to obtain the indictment.

It’s worth noting that only SPLC, as an entity, is indicted here. No individuals are charged. That suggests an inability to identify a specific individual who committed a specific criminal act, or perhaps a lack of confidence in the ability to convict an individual, given the overall context of the work the Southern Poverty Law Center does. Blanche reiterated that the investigation was ongoing at the press conference. So why rush to indict the case today? Why not wait and see what the investigation reveals before charging? Perhaps it’s that Blanche is auditioning for the AG position and Patel is trying to hold onto his. But it may also suggest some weakness in the evidence.

Let me give you a sense of the kind of organization the SPLC is: On March 21, 1981, a 19-year-old Black man, Michael Donald, was kidnapped, beaten, and then lynched in Mobile, Alabama. The perpetrators were members of the United Klans of America. They murdered Donald after a mistrial in a case where a Black man had been indicted for killing a white police officer. Donald was an innocent man, a random victim chosen for a brutal murder, committed out of pure racial animus.

What happened next was justice. The SPLC sued the Klan on behalf of Donald’s mother. They won, and Ms. Donald was awarded $ 7 million. The SPLC executed the judgment vigorously, forcing the United Klans to exhaust their resources, including turning over the group’s national headquarters. They broke the Klan.

The SPLC has a history of successfully handling impact litigation. They used similar tactics to those used with the Klan case against Aryan Nations. They were litigating against ICE before it was popular, securing a preliminary injunction in 2020 during the pandemic that required ICE to identify and release medically vulnerable detainees. Over 20,000 people were released as COVID swept through the facilities where people were held in overcrowded conditions. In litigation that went on for close to a decade, a federal judge held that prison mental health care in Alabama state prisons was “horrendously inadequate,” and put the state on a timeline to improve conditions. Since 2017, the Center has played an active role in voting rights litigation. I could go on, but you get the point.

The case will now proceed in Montgomery, Alabama, where SPLC, for decades, fought against racial injustice. Today, every active federal district judge in the Middle District of Alabama is a Trump appointee. Judge Emily C. Marks, a 1995 graduate of Spring Hill College and a 1998 graduate of The University of Alabama School of Law, will oversee the case. She practiced law in Montgomery, Alabama, for 20 years before being appointed to the bench by Donald Trump in August of 2018. This will be her first major case in the public spotlight.

This administration has targeted people and institutions whose philosophies run contrary to its own, even as it has protected and rewarded its allies, disappearing convictions of people like Steve Bannon and January 6 defendants convicted on serious insurrection charges. Indicting the Southern Poverty Law Center sends a message—part of their work involves tracking white supremacists, like some of the people who overran the Capitol on January 6. The Justice Department is going after SPLC on a tenuous theory; at the same time, it’s making sure the kind of people the Center tracks are walking free. The message is: it’s open season, as long as you support the president.

This is the kind of moment where the details matter. I break down the charges, how they fit together, and what they signal about where the case is headed so you can understand it with the rigor it demands. If you’re already a paid subscriber, thank you. If you’re aren’t yet, and if you value this level of analysis, please consider becoming one. Paid subscriptions support my work and keep it available for everyone.

We’re in this together,

Joyce