Jim Geraghty of National Review Online discusses recent legal action against a prominent left-wing group.
The Southern Poverty Law Center is not a law enforcement agency. It is not an intelligence agency. It is not a traditional journalism institution either, although it’s worth noting that paying sources is an extremely controversial step in traditional journalism.
The Southern Poverty Law Center is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, meaning that all contributions, grants, and bequests are tax-deductible.
So if you’ve donated to the SPLC since the 1980s, some of your money went to members of the very hate groups and extremist organizations that the SPLC supposedly exists to combat and defeat.
Why was the SPLC paying enormous sums of money to “informants”? From the Department of Justice’s indictment:
Starting in the 1980s, the SPLC began operating a covert network of informants who were either associated with violent extremist groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, or who had infiltrated violent extremist groups at the SPLC’s direction. …
… Between 2014 and 2023, the SPLC secretly funneled more than $3 million in SPLC funds to Fs who were associated with various violent extremist groups. …
… I don’t know about you, but I would be extremely wary about ever putting any of my money or my organization’s money into the hands of anyone who was an active member of these groups.
As you may have noticed, these are not small sums of money. Whoever F-9 is, he allegedly made more than a million dollars from the SPLC over nine years! While the program reportedly began in the 1980s, the indictment lists wire transfers going up to April 25, 2023. …
… In a video response, Brian Fair, the interim president and CEO of the SPLC, said, “We no longer work with paid informants.” Okay, wait, if this was on the up-and-up and such an effective tool, why did the organization stop paying informants? Or is ending the program a belated recognition that taking tax-deductible donations and putting large sums of money into the pockets of leaders and members of hate organizations wasn’t such a swell idea?
