DOJ charges Southern Poverty Law Center with fraud
Acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche speaks during a press conference with FBI Director Kash Patel next to him, at the Department of Justice in Washington, DC, on April 21, 2026.
Mandel Ngan | AFP | Getty Images
The Department of Justice on Tuesday announced a bombshell 11-count indictment accusing the Southern Poverty Law Center of secretly funding right-wing extremist groups that it claimed to be battling.
“The SPLC was not dismantling the groups,” said Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche at a press conference. “It was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred.”
The indictment was returned Tuesday by a grand jury in U.S. District Court in the Middle District of Alabama, Blanche said. The SPLC, which is a non-profit civil rights group, is charged with six counts of wire fraud, four counts of bank fraud, and one count of money laundering, he said.
The SPLC earlier Tuesday in a statement said it was the subject of a criminal probe by the DOJ.
“Although we don’t know all the details, the focus appears to be on the SPLC’s prior use of paid confidential informants to gather credible intelligence on extremely violent groups,” CEO Bryan Fair said in a statement reported by The Associated Press.
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