SPLC funded the racism it claimed to fight

OPINION:

The Southern Poverty Law Center has long been known as a group of relentless fundraisers and consummate smear artists.

Yet according to an 11-count indictment obtained by the Justice Department, SPLC funded racism to give itself something to fight.

In the indictment, the group is charged with wire fraud, bank fraud and conspiracy to launder money.

SPLC is alleged to have funneled millions of dollars to racist and neo-Nazi groups from 2014 to 2023.

Beneficiaries of the SPLC’s largesse included the Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Nations and a group that organized the 2017 Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, which turned violent and led to the charge by former President Biden and others that America was under siege by right-wing extremists.

While it was funding extremist groups, SPLC was smearing legitimate conservative organizations such as the Family Research Council, Turning Point USA, Alliance Defending Freedom and Moms for Liberty.

The gunman who attacked the Family Research Council headquarters in 2012, wounding a security guard, had SPLC material in his pocket calling the organization anti-gay. Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, who was murdered last year, was a frequent target of SPLC’s venom.

During the Biden administration, the FBI and Justice Department regularly used SPLC “research” to investigate pro-life and pro-family organizations. In a way, the federal government became an enforcement arm of SPLC. Through all this, the group ignored real extremists on the left.

What started as a legitimate effort to fight the Klan 55 years ago became a smear factory and fundraising juggernaut. SPLC has an annual revenue of more than $100 million and a $780 million endowment. Ruining reputations isn’t cheap.

For SPLC, the left was off limits. The Klan and neo-Nazis were going out of business, so SPLC had to prime the pump by giving the groups it was supposed to be fighting the money to keep going.

It’s not just the SPLC’s reputation and possibly the liberty of its leadership that’s at stake. It’s also the left’s narrative of America under siege by violent extremists on the right. If you have to pay someone to hate, then they can’t be very good at it.

America really is besieged — not by geriatric grand dragons and Hitler wannabes but by anti-ICE anarchists and those marching for jihad and attacking Jews. They won’t be stopped by SPLC, which has become the paymaster of hate groups on the verge of bankruptcy.