Money for Lover: Left-Wing Charity Faces Fraud Probe over Alleged Misuse of Funds

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) built its reputation by identifying organizations it regarded as extremist. Now the progressive nonprofit is itself facing a federal fraud case involving the alleged misuse of charity funds.

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) alleges that a former director of the SPLC funneled $1.2m to an informant who infiltrated a neo-Nazi organization and was also her romantic partner. Around $140,000 allegedly ended up in a joint account used by the pair for everyday transactions.

The accusation comes as part of a wider investigation, coordinated with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), into the alleged fraudulent use of funds at the left-wing charity. The initial indictment was released in April this year, with additional information published earlier this month in a 2 June superseding indictment.

Included in this new tranche of documents from the DOJ were allegations involving a former director of the SPLC’s Intelligence Project. The documents allege that the then director was in a secret romantic relationship with a paid field source who infiltrated a neo-Nazi organization known as the National Alliance at the direction of the SPLC.

The SPLC official reportedly shared a home with the source, with around $140,000 said to have ended up in a shared bank account used to fund their life together.

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Fraud Accusations

The revelations come as the charity battles an 11-count indictment returned by a federal grand jury in Alabama in April charging the SPLC with six counts of wire fraud, four counts of making false statements to a federally insured bank and one count of conspiracy to conceal money laundering, according to the DOJ.

The charity has rejected what it says are “false allegations”, claiming the DOJ knew of its activities and benefited from them, while critics of the investigation say the case is politically motivated.

The investigation has placed the actions of the NGO under the spotlight at a time when it has become increasingly influential in corporate, political and legal circles in America and globally.

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The SPLC was founded in 1971 to tackle racism and fight white supremacy in the US, but critics accuse it of becoming a “shadow censorship regime” that targets law-abiding Christian, conservative and pro-life charities.

It has an international reach through its participation in such left-wing collaborations as the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, which monitors what it describes as far-right activity across the world.

SPLC’s Hate Map

At the center of much of the criticism is the SPLC’s “hate map”, intended to draw attention to the prevalence of American-based “hate groups”. It was launched in 2000 and expanded its designations over time to include pro-life and Christian charities, along with a host of other mainstream conservative organizations such as the late Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA.

Speaking during a hearing of the US Congress regarding the SPLC indictment, a representative for Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) accused the charity of tarring mainstream conservative organizations as hate groups.

https://twitter.com/ADFLegal/status/2064388160017281166

The SPLC “relentlessly” sought to “silence those groups” by persuading America’s leading financial and technology firms to exclude them from the marketplace of ideas and gift-matching programs, said ADF’s Ryan Bangert at the 9 June hearing.

In 2018, the SPLC helped launch a left-wing coalition that targeted financial and technology industries, he continued, embedding the charity within the infrastructure of corporate decision-making.

This enabled it to influence terms of engagement, flag business partners and “bully corporations into compliance”, said the ADF representative.

Censorship Regime

Bangert finished by calling on Congress to bring forward legislation that would dismantle “the SPLC’s shadow censorship regime”.

Some American corporations have ceased using SPLC’s hate list as a default filter for gift-matching programs, including most recently one of the US’s largest food delivery services, DoorDash.

ADF welcomed the company's decision, arguing that because of the SPLC’s gatekeeping role within these programs, many of the 26 million employees at companies which offer gift-matching opportunities have been unable to fully exercise that benefit.

Similar steps have been taken at Mastercard, Texas Instruments and Salesforce, all of which agreed to remove the SPLC as a default screening agent, an ADF spokesperson said.

Left-Wing Bias

SPLC acting CEO Bryan Fair also attended the 9 June congressional hearing and defended the organization, while Democratic Rep. Deborah Ross described the DOJ’s case as “weaponized” and conducted at the behest of President Trump.

During the hearing, Fair was pressed on why pro-life organizations were included on the SPLC’s hate list while left-wing organizations such as Antifa and Jane’s Revenge were not. According to Texas Republican Lance Gooden, Jane’s Revenge has claimed responsibility for “vandalizing and destroying pregnancy resource centers”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GmTHd_-4uA

The SPLC’s acting CEO is grilled on why Antifa is not included on the charity’s hate list during a hearing before the US Congress on 9 June.

More than 1,000 groups and organizations are included on the SPLC’s hate list, which is frequently criticized for being politically biased.

Fair explained that Antifa was not listed because the FBI classifies it as an ideology rather than a group.

An examination of the nonprofit’s website shows it has a section dedicated to identifying “extremist groups and ideologies”, which includes as ideologies “Radical Traditional Catholicism”, “Anti-LGBTQ”, “Male Supremacy” and “Neo-Nazi”. However, it does not include Antifa.

Whether or not the DOJ’s case against the charity succeeds, it has brought criticism of the SPLC to national attention and placed its activities under greater scrutiny. As the DoorDash decision shows, the investigation is already having an impact on what critics call the nonprofit’s “shadow censorship regime”.