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mahatmakanejeeves

(70,308 posts)
Tue Apr 21, 2026, 05:46 PM Tuesday

Southern Poverty Law Center indicted over alleged use of paid informants in extremist groups

Source: CNN

Southern Poverty Law Center indicted over alleged use of paid informants in extremist groups

By.Hannah Rabinowitz
UPDATED 5 MIN AGO
UPDATED APR 21, 2026, 5:40 PM ET
PUBLISHED APR 21, 2026, 10:09 AM ET

The Southern Poverty Law Center was indicted Tuesday over a discontinued program that used paid confidential informants to penetrate white supremacist and other organizations, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced.

The indictment, which was handed up by a federal grand jury in Alabama, charges the organization with 11 counts, including bank fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Part of that work included a now-defunct program that employed informants to "infiltrate" extremist groups and learn about their activities and guard against violent threats, SPLC CEO Bryan Fair said in a statement Tuesday morning. He denied any wrongdoing on behalf of the group. Fair said the SPLC often shared insight with law enforcement, but did not share the intel widely to protect the informants' identities.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has for decades tracked white supremacy and extremist groups. Republicans and allies of the president have long criticized the nonprofit for what some say is acting as a far-left entity that targets conservative organizations and individuals.

{snip}

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2026/04/21/politics/splc-justice-department-criminal-investigation



Earlier this morning:

Tue Apr 21, 2026
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143654022
Southern Poverty Law Center says it faces a Justice Department criminal probe over paid informants

----------

Chris Gender has yet to come up with a case number. Try here over the rest of the evening:

https://bsky.app/profile/chrisgeidner.bsky.social

The case is being filed in Alabama, because if it were filed in DC, Jeanine Pirro would lose it for DOJ.

--------

Reposted by Indefinitely Extended Hat
https://bsky.app/profile/kenwhite.bsky.social‪Chris Geidner‬

‪******
Chris Geidner
‪@chrisgeidner.bsky.social‬

BREAKING: DOJ announces charges against the Southern Poverty Law Center based on allegations of paid informants in an indictment in the Middle District of Alabama.

"This investigation is very much ongoing," FBI Director Kash Patel said.

Blanche //


Our Indictment alleges
Southern Poverty Law Center secretly funneled
MORE THAN $3 MILLION IN FUNDS to white supremacist & extremist groaps including:
$ 1M + National Alliance affillate
$300K+ Aryan Nations affilate
$270K + "ente the Right"
member
$140K+ Elia National
Alliance Chairman
$73K + Farmer KKK members
$19K+ pressient Efelon
ALT

Blanche and Patel
ALT
5:40 PM · Apr 21, 2026
******

BREAKING: DOJ announces charges against the Southern Poverty Law Center based on allegations of paid informants in an indictment in the Middle District of Alabama.

"This investigation is very much ongoing," FBI Director Kash Patel said.

Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner.bsky.social) 2026-04-21T21:40:15.169Z
16 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies

PSPS

(15,349 posts)
3. "[SPLC] has for decades tracked white supremacy and extremist groups."
Tue Apr 21, 2026, 05:53 PM
Tuesday

Of course, republicans don't want anything shining light on their supporters.

Goonch

(5,337 posts)
4. Prominent Civil Rights Group Says It Is Under Federal Investigation
Tue Apr 21, 2026, 05:58 PM
Tuesday

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which is best known for investigating hate groups, has been accused by Republicans of unfairly targeting conservative and Christian organizations.....

civil rights group that has long tracked hate groups, said on Tuesday that it was under investigation by the Justice Department over its past use of paid informants to infiltrate extremist organizations.

Bryan Fair, the group's interim chief executive, said in a video that the Trump administration had “made no secret of who they want to protect and who they want to destroy.”

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Southern Poverty Law Center was formed in 1971 in Alabama and is best known for investigating groups like the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacy organizations. In recent years, Republicans have accused the group of unfairly targeting conservative and Christian organizations, labeling them as extremists.

The criminal investigation comes as the Trump administration pushes to counter what it calls anti-Christian and anti-conservative bias in the government. Last week, the Justice Department issued a report highly critical of how the Biden administration prosecuted anti-abortion activists under a law meant to safeguard access to abortion providers and church services.

In his statement, Mr. Fair said the group no longer worked with paid informants but that those informants had “risked their lives to infiltrate and inform on the activities of our nation’s most radical and violent extremist groups.” That work, he insisted, saved lives.

“We will not be intimidated into silence or contrition, and we will not abandon our mission,” Mr. Fair said. “We will vigorously defend ourselves, our staff, and our work.”........
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/21/us/politics/southern-poverty-law-center-doj-investigation.html

hlthe2b

(114,244 posts)
5. Absolute bullshit. Todd Blanche has come across as a "classical high powered lawyer" in appearance...
Tue Apr 21, 2026, 06:01 PM
Tuesday

but he is an absolute Fascist himself. I hope to live to see him join many others in prison and disbarred.

Qutzupalotl

(15,840 posts)
7. They're worried the SPLC defrauded white supremacist groups?
Tue Apr 21, 2026, 06:28 PM
Tuesday

Am I understanding this correctly? We are through the looking glass here.

muriel_volestrangler

(106,389 posts)
9. So the Keystone DoJ's claim is that the informants were "manufacturing the extremism" and "stoking racial hatred"
Tue Apr 21, 2026, 07:06 PM
Tuesday

What they're doing is claiming that the Ku Klux Klan and Nazi parties would have been innocent associations, if it wasn't for the nefarious infiltrators from the evil SPLC.

This is, of course, bollocks, but perhaps the DoJ's aim is to force the SPLC to defend itself by detailing how the informants worked, thus helping the DoJ's friends, like the Ku Klux Klan and Nazi parties, to detect infiltrators in the future, and maybe to take violent retribution on those who did it in the past.

Marcuse

(9,062 posts)
13. A new twist on the old "outside agitators" allegation as per the Civil Rights Era and January 6.
Tue Apr 21, 2026, 08:35 PM
Tuesday

Marcuse

(9,062 posts)
12. Justice for christian nationalists, KKK, Nazis and motorcycle gangs, but none for the victims of Epstein and Friends.
Tue Apr 21, 2026, 08:30 PM
Tuesday

jfz9580m

(17,445 posts)
15. That is creepy
Wed Apr 22, 2026, 02:51 AM
Yesterday

Nathan Robinson of Current Affairs and Chauncey DeVega have warned of fascism and now it is here, but I pleasantly surprised to find it looks much like routine sleazy rightist and corporatist or male creep driven shit.
I mean that is not good. But I don’t think the wheel needs to be reinvented.

I was, maybe still am in something that looked like an experiment that you can’t easily break whatever walls with-forget ai, but I rarely break the ice so to speak even with humans.

I am here because I generally disagree with society. I don’t understand the point of disagreeing with society on sites that represent the worst of society. And I don’t want to be a member of HackerPervertCreeps or GamingBosses or..

It is neither a tacky splashy game for the bored children of repellent human beings in tech etc. Nor is it escapist. Nor is it a gatekept bunker,

With the rules of 2008-2012 even, just keeping the creeps at bay or expecting full say over your own devices and home except the very rare real security issue not one creepily forced..

If you take things seriously and at face value while still grasping how human life works..I was grinning to myself over how the ordinary human of any type a person may know in any context - the key is are all primary properties of the original preserved.



I have spent a long terrifying period in what is at the very least my conception of “How Creeps and Insipid People Think Collectively”. Like this is not an ordinary time and I don’t quite know with all

I kinda roughly know the cats I herd with. Well my posts are in this garble to figure out how. It is not an uninteresting problem if you get it just right.

OldBaldy1701E

(11,314 posts)
16. How long have they been brainstorming to come up with this crap?
Wed Apr 22, 2026, 07:54 AM
20 hrs ago

They have been trying to get rid of that entity for decades.

They hate being watched.

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