Jackson Jambalaya

He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil)

 The Southern Poverty Law Center might have some splainin' to do after the Justice Department accused the civil rights organization of paying off the leadership of the KKK, Nazi Party, and Aryan Nations while telling donors it was fighting hate.  

A federal grand jury indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center for 11 counts of conspiracy to commit concealment of money laundering, false statements to a federally insured bank, and wire fraud in U.S. District Court in Alabama (Middle District) on April 21. 

The Southern Poverty Law Center bears a storied name due to its role in the civil rights movement. Formed in 1971, it bankrupted the Klan through lawsuits and won millions of dollars in more judgments against the Nazis.  However, the organization has generated a great deal of controversy over the last decade.  SPLC fired co-founder Morris Dees in 2019 for harassment and other charges. Millions of dollars were found to be stuffed in offshore accounts while employees are paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in salaries.  SPLC drew much fire for adding groups with which it disagreed to its "Hatewatch" list.  Some of these groups included Moms for Liberty, Catholic theologians, and victims of Muslim violence. Free Press article. 

SPLC's website told potential donors "Your support powers our work to confront hate, stand up to injustice, and defend our civil and human rights. However, the indictment charges the defendant instead used donated money to actually fund the KKK, Aryan Nation, and National Alliance - all white supremacist organizations it claimed to fight.  SPLC also used paid confidential informants to obtain information on white supremacist activities.  

In 2016, the year before the Unite the Right rally, the SPLC’s total contributions and public support stood at about $50 million. By October 2017, after the rally, revenues soared to approximately $133 million. Article

Jackpot!  

* Meet the million-dollar informant. The indictment's tale of informant F-9 shows the SPLC was not above putting Nazi leaders on the payroll. The indictment charges: 

F-9 was affiliated with the neo-Nazi organization, the National Alliance and served as an F for the SPLC for more than 20 years. F-9's activities included fundraising for the National Alliance. Between 2014 and 2023, the SPLC secretly paid F-9 more than $1,000,000.00. In 2014, F-9 entered the headquarters of a violent extremist group and stole 25 boxes of their documents. F-9 coordinated payment for the copying of the materials with a high-level SPLC employee who had knowledge the documents had been stolen. The original stolen materials were returned to the violent extremist group in a second illegal entry by F-9. Thereafter, the high-level SPLC employee utilized the documents, in part, as the basis for a story published on the SPLC's Hatewatch website and authored by the employee. Another F, F-39, was blamed for the theft and was paid approximately $6,000.00 by the SPLC to falsely take responsibility for the theft.

Thus in the guise of fighting hate, the Southern Poverty Law Center paid a leader of the Nazi Party $1 million to lead the organization. The question is did the SPLC direct his activities and if so, did it do so to assist its own fund-raising? 

* Money for the Klan.   F-Unkown was the Imperial Wizard of the United Klans of America while on the SPLC payroll.  Good grub if you can get it, right? 

*  The SPCL kept paying Nazis.  The "civil rights" organization paid F-27 $300,000 from 2014 to 2020.  The informant was an officer in the Nazi Party and the Sadistic Souls Motorcycle Club (Aryan Nations)

* Don't forget the National Alliance.  F-42 received $140,000 from 2016 to 2023.  The informant was the former Chairman of the National Alliance.  

* Meet SPLC's franchise player, F-30.  F-30 "led the National Socialist Party of America", once led a faction of the Aryan Nations, and was once in the KKK.  SPCL paid the informant $30,000 from 2014 to 2016. 

* Presidents were on the payroll as well.  The SPLC paid $19,000 to F-43, the President of the American Front from 2016 to 2019.  

* Pawns in the game.  SPCL paid a whopping $3,500 to F-unknown, a member of the KKK married to an Excalted Cyclops.  

* By any means necessary.  SPLC directed more than $160,000 to a "fictitious entity" to F-11 who in turned funneled the money to extremist group leaders, including a former Grand Wizard. 

How the Scheme Worked  (Allegedly)

The SPLC opened accounts at banks in the name of "fictitious entities" such as the Center Investigative Agency (CIA), Fox Photography, North West Technologies, Tech Writers Group, and Rare Books Warehouse.  The "entities" were never incorporated and had no actual employees.  

Pursuant to the discussion we had earlier this week, please /er this correspondence serve as confirmation that the accounts listed below were opened for the benefit of Southern Poverty Law Center operations and operated under the Center's authority. 

The SPLC listed the accounts in the correspondence.  

The use of these "phony accounts" figure prominently in the Justice Department's case.  The indictment accuses SPLC of using these accounts to mislead donors and hide the true nature of its fund-raising.  

The Justice Department seeks the forfeiture of any assets used to perpetuate the alleged scheme.  

The case is assigned to U.S. District Judge Emily Parks and Magistrate Kelly Pate.   

Kingfish note: The SPLC's defenders claim it was just paying informants.  Uh-huh.  The Southern Poverty Law Center is not a law enforcement or intelligence agency.  Even if no fraud occurred, the question must be asked if the Southern Poverty Law Center was creating more hate activities among white supremacists so it could raise more money i.e. line its own pockets.  Such tactics were very profitable in Charlottesville.  

Despite the salacious details in the indictment, the Justice Department probably faces an uphill battle.  Legal commentator Johnathon Turley opined: 

Setting aside such civil litigation, this will still be a challenge for the Justice Department. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told Fox News that the investigation was begun under the Biden Administration but then suddenly terminated.

The action is likely to draw serious constitutional challenges over free speech and associational rights. The Center can argue that it was clear that they were targeting racist groups by any means necessary. While they did not discuss such clandestine operations, they will argue that the operations were still used to attack these groups and share information with law enforcement. The Center is also likely to raise selective prosecution claims.

The government has a tough case, with the alleged fraud used to produce evidence submitted to state and federal prosecutors. In addition, if this case extends into a new administration, a Democratic Justice Department could scuttle the case as did the Biden Administration. Rest of column.

National Review's Dan McLaughlin offered his own thoughts: 

Assuming the facts alleged are true, there are two main and related hurdles for the prosecution. The first is materiality, a core element of fraud that I’ve written about in many contexts. Lies are only fraudulent if they are material, i.e., if they are significant enough — and unknown and unknowable enough to the target — that a reasonable person in the victim’s position would be expected to consider the misrepresented or concealed fact to be important to one’s decision. Here, the SPLC’s lawyers will doubtless note that even $2 million isn’t that big a portion of the group’s budget over a decade; that all nonprofits spend and even waste some money on things they don’t detail to their donors...

The second defense would be that the SPLC, which allegedly has been making these kinds of payments since the 1980s, is doing what amounts to undercover journalism, and is getting more in information out of its sources than it is losing by getting in bed with them and paying them. The indictment itself notes that the SPLC was involved in stealing documentary records from the groups. Our donors would want us to do this, the SPLC will doubtless argue, and they would understand that the nature of these kinds of informant programs is that they need to remain clandestine.

The problem for the SPLC’s defense is not just that it was financing high-ranking figures with leadership roles, but that it was allegedly so hypocritical that it even ran profiles on its website of some of the hate figures it was secretly paying. The political problem is that a trial will air a lot of very dirty laundry that could turn people off, especially business donors who do not want their donations funneled to skinheads. Rest of column.

The Southern Poverty Law Center may win the case but lose the war if it goes to trial.  The organization might technically be innocent but it will suffer a bloody nose if more dirty laundry is aired in an Alabama courtroom.