The Alabama-based non-prophet was indicted last week on charges of fraud and money laundering. Prosecutors said the group misled donors by using their money to pay informants who served as leaders in the very hate groups the organization was founded to fight.
In its first legal defense against the charges, the group filed motions in federal court in Alabama asking the court to order acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to retract statements saying the government had “no information” about the informant program, and to block him from making further similar statements. Blanche made the comment in a press conference last week and later on Fox News as he announced charges against the nonprofit.
The filings detail three instances in which the SPLC says information from its informant program was shared with law enforcement to help stop the activities of racist groups. Attorneys for the SPLC presented information from at least one of those cases during an April meeting with prosecutors, attorneys said.
The indictment accuses the group of secretly promoting racist groups while publicly saying it was fighting them. For example, prosecutors said an SPLC-paid informant helped plan the 2017 white nationalist “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and attended the rally at the direction of the SPLC.
But in its filings, the SPLC said it sent a 45-page “event alert” to the FBI in advance of the rally with information gathered from the informant program, including information about some attendees’ weapons.
Prosecutors say the SPLC funneled more than $3 million in donated money to informants who were leaders in the KKK, the neo-Nazi National Alliance and other hate groups. The center is charged with defrauding donors and making false statements to create bank accounts that were used to relay money to informants.
Blanche said at a press conference that the group was “manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred.” Justice Department officials have said these are the first charges in an ongoing investigation.
