SPLC Charged With Fraud For Financing Hate Groups

I've long noted that if it weren't for double standards, liberals would have no standards at all. Such is the case here. The Department of Justice has announced: "Federal Grand Jury Charges Southern Poverty Law Center for Wire Fraud, False Statements, and Conspiracy to Commit Money Laundering," noting that "[b]etween 2014 and 2023, the SPLC secretly funneled more than $3 million in donated funds to individuals who were associated with various violent extremist groups including the Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations, and National Socialist Party of America."

    “The SPLC is manufacturing racism to justify its existence,” said Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. “Using donor money to allegedly profit off Klansmen cannot go unchecked. This Department of Justice will hold the SPLC and every other fraudulent organization operating with the same deceptive playbook accountable. No entity is above the law.”

    “The SPLC allegedly engaged in a massive fraud operation to deceive their donors, enrich themselves, and hide their deceptive operations from the public," said FBI Director Kash Patel. "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. That is illegal – and this is an ongoing investigation against all individuals involved.”    

 The Left is already cranking up the spin on this as exemplified by this article from USA Today: "Key civil rights group indicted for paying informants. But FBI does it too." Notwithstanding the headline, though, even that article is forced to acknowledge that the indictment isn't about paying people for information, but the practice "was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred." Moreover, according to Patel, the money was not going to lowly informants but "to go ahead and actually pay the leadership of these supposed violent extremist groups."