DOJ charges Southern Poverty Law Center with fraud over secret funding of extremist groups

“The SPLC was not dismantling the groups,” said Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche at a press conference. “It was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred.”

The indictment was returned Tuesday by a grand jury in U.S. District Court in the Middle District of Alabama, Blanche said. The SPLC, which is a non-profit civil rights group, is charged with six counts of wire fraud, four counts of bank fraud, and one count of money laundering, he said.

The SPLC earlier Tuesday in a statement said it was the subject of a criminal probe by the DOJ.

“Although we don’t know all the details, the focus appears to be on the SPLC’s prior use of paid confidential informants to gather credible intelligence on extremely violent groups,” CEO Bryan Fair said in a statement reported by The Associated Press.

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