Prosecuting a crime and constructing a dramatic narrative designed to satisfy political actors are two entirely different things. The indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) increasingly feels like the latter. And it’s only getting worse for the government, with new whistleblower allegations that one of acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s deputies pressured prosecutors to work quickly to indict the SPLC, in the face of concerns about evidentiary shortcomings. House Democrats are calling it a “shocking abuse of prosecutorial power to attack civil society.”
The SPLC is a major hub in the civil rights community. When neither DOJ nor the state of Alabama could, or perhaps would, hold the Ku Klux Klan responsible for atrocities including lynchings and bombings, the SPLC came up with a novel legal strategy, and it worked. They represented the mother of a victim of one of the lynchings, an innocent 19-year-old Black man named Michael Donald, in a civil lawsuit that bankrupted the Klan, effectively putting them out of operation. Ms. McDonald even ended up holding the keys to the Klan’s national headquarters after she was awarded a $7 million verdict. As other white supremacist hate groups cropped up in the wake of the Klan’s demise, the SPLC pursued them too, including Aryan Nation. They have always been on the frontlines, educating school kids, working with communities, and pushing impact litigation. Apparently, the current administration does not count itself among the fans of this work.
From the start, the theory of the government’s case strained common sense. The Justice Department alleged that one of the country’s most prominent civil rights organizations—the very organization whose mission for decades has been to track, infiltrate, expose, and dismantle violent white supremacist groups—was actually supporting those groups because it paid informants inside them. They insinuated that the SPLC was encouraging domestic terror to justify its existence, like the arsonist who pretends to be a hero in putting out a fire. There’s a rule at the Justice Department that when an indictment is announced, officials don’t comment on the case beyond what’s in “the four corners” of the indictment document. They are supposed to explicitly tell the public an indictment contains allegations and is not proof of guilt, that the defendant remains innocent until convicted.
Everything we have learned since this indictment was made public has only heightened the sense that the government’s case is weak and political. It is the very type of weaponization of the criminal justice system that this administration has repeatedly—and baselessly—accused the Biden Justice Department of committing.
The SPLC’s critics have frequently accused it of being too aggressive in identifying extremist organizations and labeling them publicly as such. No serious observer has ever confused the SPLC with a sympathetic ally of white nationalism. The SPLC became one of the most hated organizations in white supremacist circles precisely because of its work exposing and financially crippling hate groups.
Now the Justice Department wants jurors to believe the organization was secretly sustaining the very movements it publicly devoted itself to destroying. That leap in the indictment—from “used paid informants” to “supported white supremacists”—is where the indictment begins to collapse.
Using confidential informants is not unusual. Federal law enforcement agencies rely on them every single day. They are critical to building cases and obtaining convictions. Drug investigations use drug dealers. Organized crime investigations use mob associates. Terrorism investigations frequently depend on individuals deeply embedded in extremist networks. Informants are often people playing key roles in criminal operations; compromised people because compromised people are the ones with access.
The SPLC allegedly compensated individuals who provided them with internal documents, attended extremist gatherings, and reported back on the activities of violent hate groups. Some of the sources allegedly held leadership positions inside those organizations. Prosecutors have presented those facts as evidence that the SPLC enabled extremism, when in fact, they suggest the SPLC was just very good at executing its mission. Infiltrating criminal operations only works if the group is unaware that the source is cooperating with law enforcement, or in this case, a private entity collecting information. That part is obvious. And informants frequently continue participating in organizations while providing intelligence; that’s what makes them so valuable. This isn’t evidence of the SPLC’s ideological alignment with the hate groups it works to expose. It is the entire premise of undercover and intelligence operations.
If the Justice Department truly believed the SPLC knowingly financed violent crimes or materially supported domestic terrorism, one would expect charges reflecting that conduct. Instead, the indictment leans heavily on fraud theories—specifically, that donors were deceived because the SPLC did not publicly explain the operational mechanics of its informant network. DOJ may find itself with egg on its face when it comes to donors’ views of how SPLC used their money. They weren’t obligated to publish a roadmap explaining exactly how they infiltrate dangerous organizations. Journalists do not disclose confidential sources. Civil rights groups tracking violent extremists aren’t obligated to expose their work, which would compromise it. This isn’t a case like the “We Build The Wall” fraud Steve Bannon and others were charged in, after they promised not to take donor money for personal use and then did. This case contorts reality into a political palliative for the acting Attorney General, Todd Blanche, who is auditioning for the permanent job and zinging case after case, like this one and the new indictment against Jim Comey, toward the White House for the president’s approval.
Weak cases like this have nothing to do with legitimate prosecutions and everything to do with politics. We should understand this case as just one more in the line of revenge indictments of people like Jim Comey and Letitia James that were found wanting. Or the investigations into members of Congress who told service members they didn’t have to follow illegal orders, cases so weak they were rejected by the grand jury. But here, there is something even more sinister at work. It’s not just an attempted takedown of an individual, it’s a cudgel thrown at the heart of the civil rights community itself. This administration would like nothing better than to silence the voices from the civil rights community and civil society, calling for a restoration of democracy and justice. That makes this indictment the worst sort of injustice.
