For months, President Donald Trump and his allies have vowed to destroy progressive nonprofits, falsely claiming that they fund and support political violence and terrorism in the U.S.
But this week, Trump loyalists in the Department of Justice (DOJ) took a major step towards carrying out the president’s promised campaign of repression: They pressed fraud charges against the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the storied civil rights organization that for decades has monitored and exposed white supremacists, neo-Nazis and other extremists.
In a press conference Tuesday, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel announced that a grand jury in Alabama returned an 11-count indictment against the SPLC for alleged financial crimes over its past use of paid informants to infiltrate violent extremist groups. The charges include wire fraud, making fraudulent statements and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Former federal prosecutors have called the indictment fundamentally flawed.
“It’s not a valid indictment,” Kyle Boynton, a former civil rights prosecutor and FBI agent, told CBS News. “I don’t think any prosecutor with white-collar experience would look at this indictment and believe it makes out the elements of a crime.”
Straying from the facts presented in the indictment, Blanche and Patel accused the SPLC of “manufacturing” extremism and fueling racial “hatred” in the U.S. — extraordinary claims against an organization known for...
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