SPLC's troubles mount as Republicans probe Biden administration ties

The House Judiciary Committee expanded its investigation into the
Southern Poverty Law Center’s relationship with the Biden administration
after the left-wing civil rights group was indicted on fraud charges
related to its use of paid informants within White supremacist groups. 
 
The committee demanded documents and communications regarding the SPLC
“paying sources and any coordination with the Biden-Harris
administration” after a federal grand jury indicted the center on 11
counts of bank fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit money
laundering. 

The indictment released Tuesday alleges that the SPLC paid $3 million
from 2014-23 to informants who were members of extremist groups,
including the Ku Klux Klan and Nazi Party of America, as well as the
organizers of the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville,
Virginia. 
 
The explosive indictment “only raises further questions” about the
center’s work with the Biden administration, the committee said in its
Thursday letter to SPLC interim CEO Bryan Fair. 
 
“We’ve been investing in these guys for a long time. They were the group
behind that whole targeting of pro-life Catholics,” House Judiciary
Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, Ohio Republican, told Fox News Channel.
“By the way, the Biden Justice Department was using the Southern Poverty
Law Center as a way to train prosecutors, for goodness sake, to deal
with extremism. That’s how ridiculous and wrong this all was.” 
 
He referred to the 2023 FBI Richmond field memo targeting
“radical-traditionalist Catholic Ideology,” which relied in part on
materials from the SPLC.? 

“In addition, other publicly available documents revealed how the
Justice Department partnered closely with the SPLC during the
Biden-Harris Administration, including scheduling regular meetings,
giving the SPLC early access to federal law-enforcement data, and
allowing SPLC employees to train federal prosecutors,” said Mr. Jordan
in the letter. “The new information about the SPLC alleged in the
indictment only raises further questions.” 

Mr. Fair said the center paid informants to gather “credible
intelligence” on violent extremist groups that was sometimes shared with
law enforcement. 
 
“While we no longer work with paid informants, we continue to take their
safety seriously,” he said in a Tuesday video. “These individuals risked
their lives to infiltrate and inform on the activities of our nation’s
most radical and violent extremist groups.” 
 
Meanwhile, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche accused the group of
“manufacturing racism to justify its existence.” 
 
The committee requested all documents and communications dating back to
Jan. 1, 2017, between the center and its “field sources,” as the
informants were called, and the phony companies created to funnel
payments to the informants. 
 
The panel also asked for any communications and documents between the
center and the Justice Department or FBI during the Biden
administration. The letter set a deadline for Thursday. 

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2026/apr/25/splcs-troubles-mount-rep
ublicans-probe-biden-administration-ties/