SPLC Targeted

That appears to be the point.

Note to my future self.

On April 21st the Justice Department indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center on eleven counts of wire fraud, bank fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. The theory: that the SPLC defrauded its donors by paying confidential informants to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Nations, and other violent extremist groups — the very groups SPLC has fought for fifty-five years.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the case by declaring that the SPLC is “manufacturing racism to justify its existence.” That is a sentence worth pausing on. Paying informants to infiltrate hate groups is standard FBI tradecraft. The SPLC says it has shared that intelligence with federal law enforcement for four decades, including a forty-five-page event alert sent to the FBI before the 2017 Charlottesville rally.

Former DOJ fraud prosecutors say the indictment struggles to identify a material false statement. The wire fraud theory rests on vague website language about dismantling white supremacy. The money laundering count piggybacks on the wire fraud count. Andrew Weissmann said the case “bears none of the indicia” of normal Justice Department review.

House Democrats just released whistleblower reports alleging that Associate Deputy Attorney General Aakash Singh ordered the Alabama U.S. Attorney’s office to rush the indictment over internal objections about the strength of the case. Singh is known inside the department as Blanche’s enforcer.

Vanguard Charitable and Fidelity Charitable have already suspended donations to the SPLC. The damage is done whether the case survives or not.

That appears to be the point.