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Southern Poverty Law Center indicted on federal fraud charges
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche speaks as FBI Director Kash Patel listens during a news conference at the Justice Department on Tuesday in Washington.
Jacquelyn Martin/AP
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Jacquelyn Martin/AP
WASHINGTON — The Southern Poverty Law Center was indicted Tuesday on federal fraud charges alleging it improperly raised millions of dollars to pay informants to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan and other extremist groups, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said.
The Justice Department alleges the civil rights group defrauded donors by using their money to fund the very extremism it claimed to be fighting, with payments of at least $3 million between 2014 and 2023 to people affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan, the United Klans of America, the National Socialist Party of America and other extremist groups.
“The SPLC was not dismantling these groups. It was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred,” Blanche said.
The civil rights group faces charges including wire fraud, bank fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering in the case brought by the Justice Department in Alabama, where the organization is based.
The indictment came shortly after SPLC revealed the existence of a criminal investigation into its program to pay informants to infiltrate extremist groups and gather information on their activities. The group said the program was used to monitor threats of violence and the information was often shared with local and federal law enforcement.
SPLC CEO Bryan Fair said the organization “will vigorously defend ourselves, our staff, and our work.”
Blanche said the money was passed from the center through two different bank accounts before being loaded onto prepaid cards to give to the members of the extremist groups, which also included the National Socialist Movement and the Aryan Nations-affiliated Sadistic Souls Motorcycle Club. The group never disclosed to donors details of the informant program, he said.
“They’re required to under the laws associated with a nonprofit to have certain transparency and honesty in what they’re telling donors they’re going to spend money on and what their mission statement is and what they’re raising money doing,” he said.
The indictment includes details on at least nine unnamed informants were paid by the SPLC through a secret program that prosecutors say began in the 1980s. Within the SPLC, they were known as field sources or “the Fs,” according to the indictment. One informant was paid more than $1 million between 2014 and 2023 while affiliated with the neo-Nazi National Alliance, the indictment said. Another was the Imperial Wizard of the United Klans of America.
The SPLC said the program was kept quiet to protect the safety of informants.
“When we began working with informants, we were living in the shadow of the height of the Civil Rights Movement, which had seen bombings at churches, state-sponsored violence against demonstrators, and the murders of activists that went unanswered by the justice system,” Fair said. “There is no question that what we learned from informants saved lives.”
The center has been targeted by Republicans
The SPLC, which is based in Montgomery, Alabama, was founded in 1971 and used civil litigation to fight white supremacist groups. The nonprofit has become a popular target among Republicans who see it as overly leftist and partisan.
The investigation could add to concerns that Trump’s Republican administration is using the Justice Department to go after conservative opponents and his critics. It follows a number of other investigations into Trump foes that have raised questions about whether the law enforcement agency has been turned into a political weapon.
The SPLC has faced intense criticism from conservatives, who have accused it of unfairly maligning right-wing organizations as extremist groups because of their viewpoints. The center regularly condemns Trump’s rhetoric and policies around voting rights, immigration and other issues.
The center came under fresh scrutiny after the assassination last year of conservative activist Charlie Kirk brought renewed attention to its characterization of the group that Kirk founded and led. The center included a section on that group, Turning Point USA, in a report titled “The Year in Hate and Extremism 2024” that described the group as “A Case Study of the Hard Right in 2024.”
FBI Director Kash Patel said last year that the agency was severing its relationship with the center, which had long provided law enforcement with research on hate crime and domestic extremism. Patel said the center had been turned into a “partisan smear machine,” and he accused it of defaming “mainstream Americans” with its “hate map” that documents alleged anti-government and hate groups inside the United States.
House Republicans hosted a hearing centered on the SPLC in December, saying it coordinated efforts with President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration “to target Christian and conservative Americans and deprive them of their constitutional rights to free speech and free association.”
Argentina forward Julián Alvarez (C) celebrates scoring his team’s second goal during the World Cup quarterfinal match against Switzerland in Kansas City on Saturday. Argentina has advanced to the semifinals and will play England on Wednesday.
Odd Andersen/AFP via Getty Images
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Odd Andersen/AFP via Getty Images
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — This was not the first time Argentina had come to the brink in this FIFA World Cup.
First, the defending champions needed extra time to escape Cape Verde, the Cinderella story of this tournament. Then, they needed a miraculous comeback to overcome a 0-2 deficit to Egypt in the Round of 16.
In Saturday’s quarterfinal in Kansas City, the Albiceleste stood on the edge once again, trapped in a 1-1 tie for much of the second half and extra time against a feisty Switzerland team that would not lie down — even once they were playing down a man and a loss seemed inevitable.
In the end, after 30 minutes of extra time, Argentina prevailed 3-1 to earn a spot in the World Cup semifinals. They will face England (which also needed extra time Saturday to defeat Norway) on Wednesday in Atlanta.
Of the 69,045 people who packed into the stands of Arrowhead Stadium on a hot and humid Missouri night, thousands wore the jersey of the sport’s singular star: Lionel Messi, the 39-year-old forward for Argentina.
But it was forward Julián Alvarez who saved the day for his team and his country, sending a right-footed rocket to the far upper corner of the goal in the 112th minute. Then, in the 121st minute, a cherry on top from Lautaro Martínez, who sealed the game with another strike.
Messi contributed only an early-game assist. He had scored a goal in a record nine straight World Cup games — this is his first game in 10 matches in which he did not.
Switzerland’s midfielder Remo Freuler (L) and Argentina midfielder Alexis Mac Allister fight for the ball during the World Cup quarterfinal in Kansas City on Saturday.
Juan Mabromata/AFP via Getty Images
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Juan Mabromata/AFP via Getty Images
Alvarez’s goal capped an increasingly desperate effort by Argentina to keep the game from going to penalty kicks. It had taken an early 1-0 lead in the 10th minute, when midfielder Alexis Mac Allister headed a Messi corner kick into the net. (That was Messi’s 10th career World Cup assist, all of them to different players.)
Yet Argentina could not add to that lead in the first half, or the second. Instead, a clinical and determined Swiss side found enough gaps in Argentina’s defense to repeatedly threaten before, finally, forward Dan Ndoye slipped a shot under the leg of Swiss goalkeeper Gregor Kobel to tie the match 1-1.
But soon after Switzerland’s equalizer came the game’s pivotal development: Swiss forward Breel Embolo was sent off after a video review showed he had faked a fall.
It was Embolo’s second yellow card of the game — the first had come late in the first half when he was late to challenge Argentinian midfielder Leandro Paredes — meaning it would be treated as a red card, and Switzerland would have to play the remainder of the game down a man.
The shocked and crying Embolo had to be led off the field, his face crumpled and head in hands, by teammates and into the locker room.
Instantly, the decision sparked debate among analysts and fans. Were both calls fair, and the outcome an acceptable consequence? Or was dooming Switzerland to a shorthanded quarterfinal a punishment that did not match the crime of a single theatrical fall to the ground, something that happens a dozen times a game?
But no debate will keep Argentina from another World Cup semifinal. And for Messi, that means two more chances — the semifinal against England, then either the final or the third-place playoff — to pad his lead in the record for career World Cup goals scored, at 21.
The US congressman Ro Khanna says armed Israeli settlers detained him during a visit to the Israel-occupied West Bank recently, describing the experience as a first-hand view of the realities faced by Palestinians living under occupation.
In an interview with Reuters on Thursday from a Palestinian village, the progressive US House Democrat from California said his detention happened the previous day while his delegation visited an area of the southern West Bank that has experienced repeated attacks by Israeli settlers.
Khanna recounted how settlers carrying US-made M4 rifles surrounded the group’s van.
“We were at a village that Israeli settlers had destroyed – they had destroyed the school, they had destroyed that village, and we were just looking at it,” Khanna said.
Referring to the Israel Defense Forces, which is funded in part by US military aid, Khanna continued: “And these hoodlums … detain us. They block off the road. And then they call the IDF and the IDF is on their side, not on the side of the Americans.”
Khanna also told Reuters, “I saw the arrogance in the eyes of those settlers, 21- and 22-year-olds with guns, laughing that they had detained us, the arrogance of those young IDF soldiers that my tax dollars are funding – having no respect for the fact that they were detaining Americans, no respect that there was an American congressperson in that bus, and laughing when our translator told them that there are Americans there and the American embassy is concerned.”
Khanna aide Cameron Kasky wrote on X that he was there when the congressman’s group was detained, saying: “The IDF showed up to back up the settlers, not the US congressman.”
Khanna added that the encounter illustrated “the arrogance of power – of a power that has had no accountability, total impunity – and it’s created a toxic culture of oppression”.
The New York Times first reported Khanna’s account on Saturday morning. He told the outlet: “I felt powerless in that situation, which is not an easy thing, as I have a lot of privilege in life.
“Imagine how people feel every day, Palestinians under the occupation, if they could make an American congressperson feel powerless for 90 minutes.”
Khanna said he and his group were ultimately able to continue traveling after contacting the US embassy and Israeli police.
The Israeli military said troops and police responded after receiving a report that settlers were obstructing vehicles near Khirbet Zanuta, according to Reuters.
Khirbet Zanuta is a Palestinian hamlet whose residents were forced to leave in the wake of violent settler raids after the Hamas attacks on Israel in October 2023.
Asked by Reuters whether he intends to run for president, Khanna replied: “I’m strongly considering it. And I’m more resolved to consider it after this trip.”
More than 700,000 Israelis reside in settlements across the occupied West Bank including East Jerusalem. The United Nations considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank to be illegal, and Israel has faced repeated criticism over violence and other actions by settlers in the territory.
Since Israel took control of the West Bank in 1967, restrictions imposed there have prevented the territory from developing a self-sustaining economy. Those restrictions intensified significantly after the deadly 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel.
Nearly 300,000 Palestinians have lost employment in the West Bank and Israel.
A June report issued by a UN independent international commission of inquiry concluded that “Israeli authorities and security forces have deliberately targeted Palestinian children resulting in genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes in the Gaza Strip and war crimes in the West Bank”.
According to data from human rights organisation Yesh Din, no Israeli has been indicted for the killing of a Palestinian since October 2023.
Khanna has been one of the most outspoken critics in the US Congress of the war in Gaza and the occupation of the West Bank, often clashing with his own party’s establishment. In May, he released a video criticizing the Democratic National Committee’s incomplete postmortem report on the defeat that the party suffered at the hands of Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election.
The postmortem did not mention Gaza. In his video, Khanna said: “As someone who campaigned in Michigan and Wisconsin, let me tell you – one of the reasons we lost is our blank check to Israel and [prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu while they committed genocide in Gaza.
“We must speak and confront hard truths if this party is to win” the 2028 presidential election, he added.
Reuters contributed reporting
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