The latest target of President Trump’s weaponized Department of Justice is the Southern Poverty Law Center (S.P.L.C.), a non-profit organization based in Montgomery, Alabama that works to combat right-wing hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Since its inception in 1971, it has served as a “catalyst for racial justice in the South and beyond, working in partnership with communities to dismantle white supremacy, strengthen intersectional movements, and advance the human rights of all people…a beacon of hope fighting white supremacy.” According to its website, S.P.L.C. defines a hate group as an organization that “has beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics.” It has used the courts to combat what remains of the segregation system, and fought on behalf of minorities, women, immigrants, the gay community, and juvenile justice. It has also worked with the FBI, often using paid informants to infiltrate the Klan and other far-right extremist groups.
The DOJ’s indictment claims the S.P.L.C. no longer combats these groups but rather deliberately fosters them, helping to keep racism alive and well for its own purposes. As acting attorney general Todd Blanche put it, “manufacturing racism to justify its existence.” According to Blanche and FBI director Kash Patel, the organization paid at least eight people affiliated with violent extremist groups like the Klan and various neo-Nazi organizations at least $3 million between 2014 and 2023. “The S.P.L.C. was not dismantling the groups,” Blanche said. “It was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred.” The S.P.L.C. “used the money they raised from their donor network to actually pay the leadership of these very groups,” Patel added. He previously called the S.P.L.C. a “partisan smear machine” and announced the bureau would no longer work with it.
Although this humble spirit’s initial inclination is to label these accusations as rich, I’m willing to give Trump’s MAGA-inspired fabrications their day in court if for no other reason than it provides an opportunity to debunk them to the embarrassment of the DOJ. Given how many of the current DOJ’s indictments have been thrown out of court lately, it appears that others (federal judges!) are not so open-minded, but perhaps my hanging about the earth for almost 200 years has taught me that almost anything is possible.
Just like the January 6th Capitol Insurrection, Some MAGAs Want to Paint Charlottesville as a False Flag Operation.
Among the indictment’s richest claims is the suggestion that the S.P.L.C. played a role in planning the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, based on the assertion that one of its informants was “part of a leadership group.” Needless to say, the notion that an S.P.L.C. informant was responsible for such a large gathering of white supremacists is a pretty silly stretch, even by Trump DOJ standards.
After all these years, MAGAs are still distorting what Trump said following the rally. It’s true that he said neo-Nazis and white nationalists should be “condemned totally,” but unfortunately he also said there were “very fine people on both sides.” Trump has always had a knack for talking out of both sides of his mouth—assuring his MAGA supporters of his loyalty to the cause while simultaneously maintaining deniability. Even if he condemned neo-Nazis and white nationalists separately, who does he think he’s fooling, except people who want to be fooled? Clearly everyone on one “side” was, in fact, a neo-Nazi or a white nationalist; who else marches with a tiki torch chanting “Jews will not replace us”?