“I’m livid,” Rep. Harriet Hageman, reacting to the 11-count federal indictment, told the “Washington Watch” program Tuesday afternoon.
Just hours earlier, an announcement from the Department of Justice said a federal grand jury had indicted the SPLC on six counts of wire fraud, four counts of bank fraud, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Those bank fraud charges relate to the SPLC’s alleged effort to disguise $3 million in payments the DOJ says went to top leaders in eight white supremacist groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, while also claiming those groups pose a serious danger.
“The SPLC is manufacturing racism to justify its existence,” Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, said in a statement.
The left-wing defense of the SPLC, which was swift, argues the so-called “civil rights group” infiltrated those white supremacist groups to keep an eye on them.
A related argument is President Trump, already labeled a Hitler-like authoritarian by Democrats, is going after a political enemy.
“This is not the pursuit of justice. This is the Trump administration going after anyone who might oppose them,” Doug Jones, the former Alabama senator, stated in a social media post.
There is also concern among some legal-minded conservatives, who have no sympathy for the SPLC, that the DOJ will have difficulty proving fraud.
"I hate the SPLC, but I think these indictments are basically [expletive]. There, I said it,” attorney Jeff Behar, an NRO contributor, stated on X.
Hageman, a longtime attorney, told “Washington Watch” host Tony Perkins she believes more charges are coming related to a conspiracy charge that helped the SPLC increase its donations.
“With one hoax, they raised $65 million,” Hageman said, referring to the 2017 “Unite the Right” white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, North Carolina.
After that controversial rally, which sparked anger and fear among Democrats and the Left, donations to the white supremacist-fighting SPLC jumped from $51.8 million to $133.4 million in only one year, according to a Fox News analysis.
That controversial event, which turned violent, featured hundreds of white supremacists, many masked in matching uniforms, marching with tiki torches.
While "Unite the Right" has been used by Democrats, including Joe Biden, to claim Republicans are cozy with racism, the rally has also been a source of conservative conspiracies over suspicion that federal agents, or informants, were involved.
According to the federal indictment, SPLC’s secretive payments went to a co-organizer of the event. The Department of Justice says that person, identified in the indictment as F-37, helped plan it, helped coordinate transportation, and even made racist postings online to foment racist hatred.
Reacting to the DOJ indictment, Daily Signal editor Tyler O’Neil told American Family News he feels vindicated, too. That’s because O’Neil, after reporting on the SPLC for years, warned the public about its corruption in a 2020 book, “Making Hate Pay.”
Even his book, which documented offshore accounts and sexual harassment allegations, did not conclude white supremacists were on the SPLC payroll.
“This scandal only highlights SPLC’s central bind: as America has grown less hateful, SPLC donors demand more evidence of hate,” he told AFN.
Back on the “Washington Watch” program, Hageman made similar observations. The rampant racism that Southern Poverty claims exists across the nation is nothing but "straw men," she said, which only made race relations worse by exaggerating it.
“It is stunning to me the fraud and the criminal activity here, and every one of them should be prosecuted and thrown in jail for life,” she said.
