Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) highlighted explosive new details on the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) scandal during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday, June 9. SPLC interim president and CEO, Bryan Fair, faced intense scrutiny as lawmakers examined the group’s alleged role in “distorting civil rights policy” by funding extremist groups, including the Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations, and the National Socialist Party of America.
SPLC Scandals
Committee Chairman Jordan put Fair through the wringer during the intense hearing, hammering the SPLC leader about whether donor money was used to prop up extremist groups in America. “We used donor money to pay confidential informants to infiltrate extremist organizations,” Fair acknowledged before stonewalling Jordan’s follow-up questions by repeatedly deferring to the group’s counsel.
Faced with Fair’s refusal to answer any questions, Jordan shifted gears, highlighting a new scandal revealed in the Department of Justice’s recently obtained superseding indictment: At least one Southern Poverty Law Center employee was allegedly in a “romantic relationship” with one of the group’s field sources, who was purportedly a member of the National Alliance, a neo-Nazi group.
Jordan said the employee “who was supposed to be dismantling hate groups” had a joint bank account with the field source. “Guess what the SPLC paid this individual? $1.2 million to, again, create and foment the hate they told their donors they were fighting,” Jordan stated. The Ohio congressman continued:
“Now, it gets worse. The individual who led the National Socialist Party, a faction of the Arian Nations, reached out to SPLC. He wanted out. He wanted help in leaving this racist group. What’d the SPLC do? They said, ‘No, no, no. Stay in the group. We’ll pay you a monthly salary. We’ll reimburse you for hosting rallies [and] purchasing racist materials.”
According to Jordan, the superseding indictment also revealed that the SPLC paid $300,000 to the field source who “coordinated transportation” to the infamous Charlottesville Rally in 2017, where one woman was killed. The SPLC paid $350,000 to another field source who ran the Aryan Nation Motorcycle Club.
Despite the new allegations, the superseding indictment did not include additional charges or defendants. The SPLC is still facing 11 counts of wire fraud, false statements to a federally insured bank, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Fair pleaded not guilty to the charges in Alabama federal court on behalf of the SPLC.
The Cause and the Cure
The SPLC allegedly spent at least $4 million bankrolling extremists while simultaneously becoming the go-to source for determining which organizations are hate groups, thanks in part to President Joe Biden’s administration.
Files obtained by America First Legal last year, according to the Daily Signal, revealed the Biden DOJ’s close relationship with the SPLC: The department’s Civil Rights Division frequently met with the “civil rights” group, granted it unprecedented access to federal law-enforcement data, and even allowed SPLC employees to train prosecutors.
At the same time, the SPLC slapped the “hate group” label on the Family Research Council, Moms for Liberty, Turning Point USA, and Alliance Defending Freedom, while turning a blind eye to violent organizations like Jane’s Revenge, an extremist pro-abortion group that “vandalized crisis pregnancy centers [and] churches” after Roe v. Wade was overturned.
If not for President Donald Trump’s Justice Department, the SPLC might have pulled off the oldest racket in the book: manufacture the crisis, pose as the cure, and, most importantly, monetize the operation. After Charlottesville, the SPLC’s revenue reportedly jumped from $51,871,438 to $133,463,398. That’s a mafia-style hustle that would make Al Capone blush.
