What the 11 count SPLC indictment says
Group accused of paying $3M over a decade to hate group leaders and members, including "Unite the Right"
This past week, on April 21, FBI Director Kash Patel and Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche announced an 11 count indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).
The indictment was handed down by a Montgomery, Alabama grand jury, per the U.S. DOJ’s press release.
Patel’s X post said that charges include “wire fraud, false statements to a federally insured bank, and conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering.”
“The SPLC allegedly engaged in a massive fraud operation to deceive their donors, enrich themselves, and hide their deceptive operations from the public,” Patel wrote. “They lied to their donors, vowing to dismantle violent extremist groups, and actually turned around and paid the leaders of these very extremist groups - even utilizing the funds to have these groups facilitate the commission of state and federal crimes.”
Patel added, “That is illegal – and this is an ongoing investigation against all individuals involved.”
The DOJ issued an X post with a graphic breaking down $3 million in payments made by SPLC to “field sources,” referred to as “Fs” in the indictment.
The “Fs” included an Imperial Wizard of the United Klans of America, an officer in the National Socialist Movement and the Aryan Nations affiliated Sadistic Souls Motorcycle Club, a former chairman of the National Alliance, as well as a leader of the National Socialist Party of America, who was also the former director of a faction of the Aryan Nations, and a former member of the Ku Klux Klan.
During a joint press conference announcing the indictment, Blanche was asked what sparked the investigation into SPLC. Blanche told reporters it started under the last administration but was stopped for some reason.
“The SPLC was not dismantling these groups,” Blanche said. “It was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred.”
The joint press conference with Patel and Blanche can be viewed below via the U.S. DOJ’s YouTube channel:
The SPLC denies wrongdoing
In a video statement, the SPLC’s Interim CEO and President Bryan Fair described the paid-informant program as a long-standing intelligence-gathering effort dating back to the 1980s which has been “discontinued.”
“We will not be intimidated into silence or contrition. And we will not abandon our mission,” Fair said. “We will vigorously defend ourselves, our staff, and our work. We will continue to fight hate and we will continue to seek a safer and more just world.”
In various other statements to media, the SPLC and Fair have called the charges “false allegations” and vowed to “vigorously defend” itself, its staff, and its mission, while also citing its work alongside the FBI in the past.
No formal press release has been issued on the SPLC website as of this article, however, Democracy Docket says the SPLC has hired defense lawyer Abbe Lowell. Democracy Docket was founded and is run by Democrat-fixer and former Hillary Clinton campaign attorney Marc Elias.
Quick involvement by Congress
Two days after the indictment came down, on April 23, House Judiciary Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) announced he had sent a letter to Fair “demanding documents and communications regarding the SPLC paying sources and any coordination with the Biden-Harris Administration.”
Jordan’s announcement also mentions his committee’s investigations into the Biden-Harris administration’s use of the federal law enforcement targeting Catholics.
“The Committee has been conducting oversight of the Biden-Harris Administration's close coordination with the SPLC on federal civil rights matters,” Jordan said. “We have found that an internal FBI system contained at least 13 documents, including the Richmond memorandum that labeled traditional Catholics as "violent extremists," that cited material from the SPLC.”
Jordan goes on to note that through publicly available records, under Biden, the Justice Department “partnered closely with the SPLC during the Biden-Harris Administration, including scheduling regular meetings, giving the SPLC early access to federal law-enforcement data, and allowing SPLC employees to train federal prosecutors.”
Noteworthy Timing
It’s probably not a coincidence that The Atlantic dropped its salacious article on Patel on April 17 — just days ahead of the indictment being released.
Patel has filed a defamation lawsuit against The Atlantic, calling it a
Discovery should be interesting and a question to be asked is: Was SPLC involved in getting that story out?
The Atlantic also did some altering of the title, likely because the first one could get them sued (too late!).
The first archived copy of The Atlantic’s article shows a time stamp of 17 Apr 2026 22:27:55 UTC, and title of “Kash Patel’s Erratic Behavior Could Cost Him His Job,” and a sub-headline of “The FBI director has alarmed colleagues with episodes of excessive drinking and unexplained absences.”
When captured 56 minutes later, the article had been retitled.
The timestamped 23:24:05 UTC archived copy of The Atlantic’s article had the new title, “The FBI Director Is MIA.” The sub-headline was unaltered.
More To The Story
What the indictment says
The indictment charges SPLC with a multi-year scheme, that ran from at least 2014 through August 2023, in which it allegedly solicited donations under the explicit promise that the funds would be used to “dismantle” violent extremist groups like the Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations, and National Alliance, while secretly using a portion of those donated funds to pay leaders and members of the very same groups.
The charges include six counts of wire fraud, specifically, ACH transfers totaling $13,905 on April 25, 2023, including payments to F-9, F-11, F-35, F-37, F-40, and F-42, four counts of false statements to a federally insured bank, and one count of conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering, plus forfeiture allegations.
Breakout of Money Paid to Field Sources (“Fs”)
According to the indictment, “Between 2014 and 2023, the SPLC secretly funneled more than $3 million in SPLC funds to Fs who were associated with various violent extremist groups.”
Below are the examples in the indictment, listed by the designation number SPLC assigned to the “Fs.”
F-37: Member of the online leadership chat group that planned the 2017 “Unite the Right” event; attended at SPLC direction; made racist postings under SPLC supervision and helped coordinate transportation. Paid more than $270,000 (2015–2023).
F-9: Affiliated with neo-Nazi National Alliance; served as F for >20 years; involved in theft of documents from a violent extremist group. Paid more than $1,000,000 (2014–2023).
F-27: Officer in National Socialist Movement and Aryan Nations-affiliated Sadistic Souls Motorcycle Club. Paid more than $300,000 (2014–2020).
F-42: Former chairman of the National Alliance; featured on SPLC’s own “Extremist File” webpage while being paid. Paid more than $140,000 (2016–2023).
F-30: Led National Socialist Party of America; former Aryan Nations director and KKK member; also featured on SPLC “Extremist File.” Paid more than $70,000 (2014–2016).
F-43: Reported National President of American Front; convicted felon for cross-burning. Paid more than $19,000 (2016–2019).
F-unknown (KKK member married to an Exalted Cyclops): Payments traced exceeding $3,500.
In addition, the SPLC allegedly funneled more than $160,000 from a fictitious entity to F-11, who then distributed funds to various violent extremist group leaders, “including the former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.”
One of the payments detailed an F being paid by SPLC for stealing files, with a different F being blamed for it. SPLC then compensated the F who was blamed.
How the SPLC Allegedly Laundered the Payments
To conceal the payments, SPLC employees, including the future Chief Financial Officer “Employee-1” and future Director of the Intelligence Project “Employee-2,” created and used fictitious entities with no real business operations.
The indictment says these entities “were never incorporated, had no bona fide employees, and conducted no actual business.”
Bank accounts were opened at two FDIC-insured banks using false Sole Proprietorship Resolution of Authority documents signed by Employee-1, in which he falsely certified he was the sole owner of each entity.
These steps were designed “to conceal the true nature, source, ownership, and control of the donated funds the SPLC was paying to the Fs,” per the indictment.
Alleged SPLC Funding of “Unite the Right” Activities
The indictment explicitly ties one high-paid field source to the 2017 Charlottesville “Unite the Right” event.
The “Unite the Right” rally was a white supremacist and white nationalist gathering held on August 11–12, 2017, in Charlottesville, Virginia.
The rally was ostensibly organized to protest the Charlottesville City Council’s decision to remove a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee from what was then Lee Park, which was later renamed Emancipation Park.
It was described by SPLC and other outlets as one of the largest public assemblies of far-right extremists in the United States in decades and most people likely remember the tiki torch images. SPLC posted multiple articles to its “Hatewatch” blog, both in advance of the rally and afterwards.
It rally became infamous for violent clashes between Unite the Right groups and counter-protesters, including Antifa and Black Lives Matter.
Things turned deadly when counter-protester Heather Heyer was killed by James Alex Fields Jr., a self-identified neo-Nazi with Vanguard America, who deliberately drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters about a half-mile from the park. Fields was convicted of murder and got a life sentence plus 419 years.
And, per the indictment, the SPLC apparently had a hand in that day’s chaos.
“F-37 was a member of the online leadership chat group that planned the 2017 ‘Unite the Right’ event in Charlottesville, Virginia and attended the event at the direction of the SPLC,” the indictment states. “F-37 made racist postings under the supervision of the SPLC and helped coordinate transportation to the event for several attendees. Between 2015 and 2023, the SPLC secretly paid F-37 more than $270,000.00.”
A copy of the full SPLC indictment can be accessed on my Document Cloud.
Related News:
“Judge Blocked Conservatives From Discovery, Then Dismissed the Case for Lack of Evidence” - Daily Signal
In the wake of the indictment, the late-Charlie Kirk’s 2023 assessment of the SPLC has also returned to viral status:
