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FIRST ON FOX: The House Judiciary Committee escalated scrutiny of the Southern Poverty Law Center on Thursday, demanding documents from the nonprofit after a federal indictment alleged the group funneled millions in donor funds to extremist organizations.
Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, wrote in a letter first obtained by Fox News Digital to SPLC President Bryan Fair that the GOP-led committee was investigating any coordination between the SPLC and the Biden Department of Justice and FBI, both of which had used the left-wing nonprofit as a resource.
Jordan demanded a slate of documents from the SPLC by April 30, a request that comes after his Republican counterparts in the Senate also ramped up scrutiny of the SPLC and after acting Attorney General Todd Blanche hinted at more possible indictments related to the group.
The intensifying investigations into the SPLC, expanding from the DOJ to Congress, come after Jordan’s committee previously investigated the group, saying it was known for “maligning several mainstream conservative and religious organizations as ‘hate groups,'” such as Moms for Liberty and Turning Point USA, and that the Biden DOJ improperly used it for civil rights enforcement.
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“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,” Jordan wrote. “The new information about the SPLC alleged in the indictment only raises further questions.”
Jordan also noted that a controversial internal memo originating from the FBI Richmond Field Office during Director Christopher Wray’s tenure, which framed so-called radical-traditionalist Catholics as a group of people more prone to violent crime, used the SPLC as a source for its findings. The memo surfaced in 2023, with Wray later retracting it and saying it was an “appalling” breach of religious freedom.
Jordan’s letter pointed out that the Richmond memo was among more than a dozen FBI documents that used the SPLC as a resource.
The DOJ on Tuesday charged the SPLC with several counts of wire fraud, false statements to a federally insured bank and conspiracy to commit money laundering, alleging the group defrauded donors for more than a decade.
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Prosecutors said the nonprofit, which promotes its efforts to fight White supremacy, misled donors by using shell companies to mask how donor funds were used. More than $3 million was paid through the shell companies to informants who participated in activities involving the Ku Klux Klan and the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement, among others, prosecutors alleged.
“The SPLC’s paid informants … engaged in the active promotion of racist groups at the same time that the SPLC was denouncing the same groups on its website,” prosecutors wrote, noting one informant allegedly went so far as to help plan the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
“Congress has an important interest in protecting Americans from extremist violence and criminal activity,” Jordan wrote in his letter. “The Committee on the Judiciary has been conducting oversight of the Biden-Harris Administration’s close coordination with the SPLC on federal civil rights matters.”
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The Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday set its sights on a woman previously affiliated with the SPLC who was a federal judge and Biden appointee serving a lifetime appointment on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit.
“Every individual associated with SPLC should have to answer for what they knew about the organization’s extremist ties, and when,” committee Republicans wrote in a statement on X.
“That includes Nancy Abudu, SPLC’s former litigation director who Biden appointed as a lifetime judge on the 11th Circuit.”
Just before the DOJ announced charges, Fair said in a public statement that the federal investigation was political rather than sincere.
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“They have made no secret of who they want to protect and who they want to destroy,” Fair said, noting the group no longer works with paid informants but adding they had “risked their lives” to infiltrate extremist groups.
Fox News Digital reached out to the SPLC and Abudu’s chambers for comment.
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