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Washington — The Justice Department is investigating the Southern Poverty Law Center in connection with a now-defunct program that used paid confidential informants to infiltrate white supremacist and other groups, according to a video posted by the nonprofit and sources with knowledge of the matter.
The case is being spearheaded by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Alabama, the sources said.
The Southern Poverty Law Center is a nonprofit that tracks white supremacist and other hate groups across the U.S., and has been a frequent target of President Trump’s allies. It is best known for its work investigating the Ku Klux Klan.
In the video posted Tuesday morning, CEO Bryan Fair said the probe focuses on bringing potential charges against both the organization and individuals connected to the group.
“The focus appears to be on the SPLC’s prior use of paid confidential informants to gather credible intelligence on extremely violent groups,” he said.
“This use of informants was necessary because we are no stranger to threats of violence. In 1983, our offices were firebombed, and in the years since, there have been countless credible threats against our staff,” he said. “For decades, we engaged in unprecedented litigation to dismantle the Klan and other hate groups. In light of that work, we sought to protect the safety of our staff and the public. We frequently shared what we learned from informants with local and federal law enforcement, including the FBI. ”
The probe comes as the Justice Department has stepped up its scrutiny of nonprofits that it accuses of being involved with or funding “domestic terrorism.” It was not clear if the criminal investigation is related to that initiative, and a spokesperson for the SPLC did not know the Justice Department’s legal theory behind the probe.
CBS News has reached out to the Justice Department for comment.
In October, FBI Director Kash Patel cut all ties between the bureau and the SPLC, accusing the group of being a “partisan smear machine.” Allies of the Trump administration have accused the organization of being “anti-Christian” and unfairly targeting Republican-aligned groups like Turning Point USA, the Family Research Council and Moms for Liberty. They have also criticized the SPLC for singling out members of the Trump administration in its online reports.
The group was the subject of a Republican-led congressional hearing in December, where a senior TPUSA executive accused the group of “weaponiz[ing] the ‘hate’ label against ideological opponents.”
In a draft report from a task force on “anti-Christian bias” that CBS News has seen, Patel accused the SPLC and the Anti-Defamation League of providing the bureau with “false information.” He said analysts used that information to generate an internal intelligence memo that raised concerns about a possible link between racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists and radical Catholic ideology.
Mr. Trump’s allies have pointed to that memo as evidence that the FBI under President Joe Biden was weaponized against Christians. The Justice Department’s Weaponization Working Group is planning to release a report analyzing how the memo came to be, according to sources familiar with the matter.
An internal FBI review later concluded that there was no malicious intent in the memo’s creation. But its drafters failed to adhere to proper standards and lacked enough evidence to support a relationship between the two groups, according to a summary of the internal findings that was released to Congress in April 2024.
In his video about the federal probe, Fair accused the Justice Department of targeting the nonprofit, and vowed to defend it from criminal prosecution.
“Today, the federal government has been weaponized to dismantle the rights of our nation’s most vulnerable people and any organization like ours that stands in the breach. We stood in the vanguard then, and we stand in the vanguard today. We will not be intimidated into silence or contrition, and we will not abandon our mission,” he said.
“We will vigorously defend ourselves, our staff, and our work; we will continue to fight hate; and we will continue to seek a safer and more just world.”
