For years the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) worked to encourage corporations and big tech to blacklist and isolate conservatives by falsely accusing them of hate or racism. Yet all the while the SPLC was allegedly paying a source to make racist online posts under its direction, according to a newly unsealed federal indictment.
The SPLC was indicted by a federal grand jury last month for wire fraud and conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering. Prosecutors allege the SPLC used millions of dollars received through donations to pay a “covert network of individuals” that were a part of “violent extremists groups” like the KKK.
Now, the newly unsealed indictment reveals that the SPLC had a field source who was “a member of the online leadership chat group that planned the 2017 ‘Unite the Right’ event in Charlottesville, Virginia and attended the event at the direction of the SPLC.”
That field source, the indictment explains, “made racist postings under the supervision of the SPLC and helped coordinate transportation to the event for several attendees.”
That field source was paid more than $270,000 by the SPLC between 2015 and 2023.
The allegation is in stark contrast to the role the SPLC played for years, that is, apparently the leading arbiter in what constitutes “hate” and “extremism.” The organization repeatedly encouraged corporations and other institutions to blacklist and censor Christian and conservative groups over fake allegations that they were doing what the SPLC appears to have actually been doing.
And as The Federalist’s Elle Purnell wrote in these pages, “the smear campaign [the SPLC] wages against Christian and conservative organizations by equating them to actually extreme groups threatens not just their reputations but their fundraising prospects and even their physical safety.”
Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee sent a letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in 2020 regarding Amazon Smile’s — the corporation’s charity program — relationship with the SPLC. According to the letter, the relationship between the two was part of a larger effort to “censor conservative views” by excluding conservative groups “from Amazon’s heavily-trafficked digital platform” which “leads to less exposure for these groups and fewer opportunities for donations.”
“In this way, Amazon’s reliance on the SPLC as a barometer to determine the eligibility of charitable organizations on AmazonSmile serves to discriminate against conservative views,” the letter continued.
So while the SPLC was denoting organizations as promoters of hate and impacting their eligibility to make money, federal prosecutors allege the group was busy paying a source to make racist online posts under its supervision.
Another organization targeted by the SPLC was Turning Point USA. SPLC writer Rachael Fugardi accused Turning Point USA of advancing so called “white Christian supremacy” in a May 2025 article.
“Turning Point USA’s primary strategy is sowing and exploiting fear that white Christian supremacy is under attack by nefarious actors, including immigrants, the LGBTQ+ community and civil rights activists,” Fugardi wrote, adding Turning Point is trying to Ssow fear and division to enforce social hierarchies rooted in supremacism,” which she said “is emblematic of the hard right’s broader political project to destroy our foundational democratic principles and institutions.”
SPLC also designated Alliance Defending Freedom as a “hate group.” Alliance Defending Freedom’s work includes protecting women’s sports from mentally ill men and defending pro-life centers against Democrat lawfare.
The SPLC also targeted The Federalist, categorizing this outlet under its “Hatewatch” label and accusing us of being a “rabidly partisan” purveyor of “anti-LBGT and specifically anti-trans writings.”
The offense was because The Federalist published a transcript of an exclusive speech then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions gave at an event held by Alliance Defending Freedom.
The newly unsealed indictment shows that SPLC was working to stigmatize conservative groups and censor their reach across major platforms by falsely accusing them of racism, all the while they themselves were allegedly engaged in the very sort of racist conduct they claimed to be combating.
