In bed with the “enemy”

Imagine an exterminator who releases rats into people’s houses just so he can sell his services in getting rid of them, or a fireman who sets his neighbor’s house ablaze just to make sure he can convince the community his services are necessary.

That’s the exact kind of grift the Southern Poverty Law Center stands accused of perpetrating, and a superseding indictment handed down by a grand jury last week added more jaw-dropping allegations.

The SPLC, which bills itself as America’s top hate watchdog, has long faced accusations that it exaggerates hate to stay relevant.

The center gained its reputation by suing Ku Klux Klan groups into bankruptcy in the 1980s, and even then, the center’s lawyers said suing the Klan was so easy, it was like shooting fish in a barrel.

Today, it publishes a “hate map” that plots mainstream conservative and Christian organizations alongside chapters of the KKK, claiming the map reveals the “infrastructure upholding white supremacy.” The map includes the KKK and the Aryan Nations, but also Turning Point USA, Moms for Liberty, and Focus on the Family. These conservative groups have nothing to do with white supremacist violence, but the SPLC insinuates that they spread the same sort of hate as the Klan.

Even left-leaning critics, such as Current Affairs editor Nathan J. Robinson, have faulted the SPLC for giving airtime to utterly irrelevant organizations. He wrote in 2019 that staff “have to know that they’re inflating the danger,” and he compared the SPLC’s exaggerations to “a scam bordering on criminal mail fraud.”

The DOJ’s latest revelations seem to confirm his suspicions.

Not only was the SPLC exaggerating hate by focusing on groups that barely exist and smearing mainstream conservatives, but, allegedly, one of its staffers was literally in bed with a neo-Nazi.

According to the superseding indictment handed down this week, a “field source” with the neo-Nazi organization National Alliance was in a romantic relationship with an SPLC employee. The two allegedly shared bank accounts, and when the SPLC clandestinely paid this “informant” more than $1.2 million through a shell company, the SPLC employee used those funds for the couple’s living expenses. So yes, the SPLC was literally in bed with a neo-Nazi.

It gets worse, however. The indictment recounts that three members of the Ku Klux Klan got cold feet and contacted the SPLC because they wanted out of the white nationalist movement. Rather than facilitate their escape, the SPLC allegedly paid them to remain in the movement, keeping them in harm’s way.

These “field sources” went on to use the SPLC’s money to travel to extremist rallies, host extremist rallies, recruit new members, and create racist paraphernalia, according to the indictment. One of them rose in the ranks to become a leader of a white nationalist group.

One Klan member used SPLC funds to purchase Klan “garments” for others. That means it’s likely there are more Klan hoods in existence because of the SPLC. The government says the SPLC also reimbursed Klan members for the materials in a cross burning.

White hoods and cross-burnings, subsidized by the SPLC!

These horrifying allegations have yet to be proven, but they underscore the SPLC’s overall strategy. Rather than celebrating the fact that America is far less racist than it was in the 1950s or the 1980s, the SPLC gins up “hate” to stay relevant. The strategy works wonders: The group has more than $800 million in assets.

Now, however, at least part of the jig appears to be up. The Justice Department is finally taking the SPLC to task. When Democrats scream to high heaven about “vindictive prosecution,” perhaps they should take a closer look at how corrupt the SPLC actually is.