The Southern Poverty Law Center entered a not-guilty plea Thursday in federal court, pushing back against a Justice Department indictment that accuses the civil rights organization of defrauding donors through a now-shuttered informant program. The case, brought under the Trump administration, alleges the group funneled donor money to extremist groups it was monitoring.
Bryan Fair, the SPLC’s interim president and CEO, forcefully denied the charges in a statement, calling them “provably wrong” and based on “inaccurate facts and a misapplication of law.” He defended the informant program as a critical tool that prevented threats, stopped criminal activity, and gathered intelligence to dismantle hate groups. “There is no question that the information the SPLC shared with law enforcement saved lives,” Fair said.
The indictment, unsealed last month, charges the SPLC with six counts of wire fraud, four counts of bank fraud, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. Prosecutors claim the group misled donors by failing to disclose that their contributions were used to fund leaders and organizers of racist groups. But the indictment cites only a single instance where informant money reached other group members, and provides no further details.
In court filings, SPLC lawyers argue the government was fully aware of the informant program while it operated, and that the organization coordinated with federal authorities to thwart attacks. They point to three specific cases where SPLC intelligence proved crucial.
One involved providing a warning to the FBI that the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, was likely to spark violence. In another, the SPLC supplied information that led to the indictment of a member of the white supremacist group Atomwaffen Division who was plotting an attack on a Las Vegas synagogue. The group also flagged a member of Vanguard America who failed to disclose extremist ties while seeking a security clearance.
“This indictment represents a stunning and unremitting departure from Justice Department policy and established law,” the SPLC’s lawyers wrote. “It seeks to criminalize some of the very investigative tools and programs that the SPLC has used for decades to infiltrate and dismantle violent extremist organizations like the Ku Klux Klan and the Aryan Nations—tradecraft that has produced vital intelligence that has been shared with law enforcement, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
The defense filing questions whether the grand jury was presented with evidence of those successes, suggesting the government may have misled the panel. “The build-up to the case suggests that the grand jury was not merely misled by the government’s presentation of the law, but likely that it was actively weaponized to facilitate such charges,” the filing states.
The case has drawn sharp political lines, with the Trump administration’s Justice Department taking aim at a group that has long been a target of conservative criticism for its designation of hate groups. The SPLC has vowed to continue its mission, with Fair declaring, “We will continue that mission no matter what.”
