The paid informant for the Southern Poverty Law Center who allegedly helped organize the Unite the Right rally in August 2017 may have been worth every penny.
The leftist civil-rights group saw its donations nearly triple in the year after the white-supremacist protest in Charlottesville, Virginia, soaring from $50 million in 2016 to $132 million in the fiscal year ending in October 2017, according to the nonprofit organization’s tax filings.
The SPLC condemned the violent rally, which resulted in one death and more than 30 injuries, but it turns out the center was more than an outside observer.
Working behind the scenes was an SPLC “field source” who helped plan, promote and coordinate transportation for the event. From 2015-23, the center paid him $270,000, according to the 11-count federal indictment released Tuesday charging the center with bank fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
SPLC Interim President Bryan Fair said the group used informants to gather “credible intelligence” that was sometimes shared with law enforcement, while Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche accused the center of “manufacturing racism to justify its existence.”
“The SPLC allegedly engaged in a massive fraud operation to deceive their donors, enrich themselves, and hide their deceptive operations from the public,” said FBI Director Kash Patel in a statement. “They lied to their donors, vowing to dismantle violent extremist groups, and actually turned around and paid the leaders of these very extremist groups.”
Pushing back were Democrats who accused the Trump administration of targeting the SPLC for political purposes.
“The Trump administration is waging a vindictive campaign against the organizations that safeguard our democracy,” said Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer of New York in a statement. “Weaponizing the DOJ to indict long-standing watchdogs is a message: if you defend voting rights, fight white supremacy, or protect civil rights, you’re next.”
The League of Women Voters denounced the indictment as “a declaration of war on the civil rights movement,” while Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland accused the administration with waging a “vendetta.”
“By going after the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Trump administration has dramatically escalated its attack on civil rights organizations and its defense of white supremacists,” said Sen. Adam Schiff, California Democrat, on X. “These intimidation tactics won’t succeed.”
While raising hundreds of millions of dollars from neurotic left-wingers via direct mail by stoking fear of surging “hate groups,” the SPLC literally paid someone more than $270,000 to, among other things, plan and organize the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, VA. The… pic.twitter.com/wF7gZ3wbWV
— Blake Neff (@BlakeSNeff) April 21, 2026
The Justice Department said the center was aiding the hate groups it purports to oppose, paying more than $3 million to members of eight radical organizations, including the Ku Klux Klan, National Alliance, National Socialist Movement, and the National Socialist Party of America, or Nazi Party.
The SPLC set up bank accounts for fake businesses with names like the Center Investigative Agency, Fox Photography and North West Technologies, funneling payments to informants through the accounts by use of prepaid bank cards. None of this was disclosed to donors, the indictment said.
“America suffered from a deficit of hatred, so the SPLC supplied some — all the while smearing normal conservatives and Christians,” said Sen. Mike Lee, Utah Republican, on X.
Republicans have long decried the center for conflating mainstream conservative groups with racist outfits like the Ku Klux Klan on its “hate map,” a listing that inspired a gunman to attack the Family Research Council in 2012, injuring a security guard.
“It turns out they were actively funding the ‘hate’ that they claimed to be fighting while targeting innocent conservatives,” said Rep. Brandon Gill, Texas Republican, on X.
Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, said he hopes the indictment against the SPLC represents “the beginning of the end of its long pattern of misrepresentation and harm.”
He also said the criminal charges, if proved, should result in “restitution to those harmed.”
“With over $750 million in their endowment which includes offshore accounts, the SPLC should be held responsible not only for what was done, but for the damage left behind,” Mr. Perkins said.
The center is known for its prolific fundraising and elaborate headquarters in Montgomery, Alabama, known as the “Poverty Palace,” but the 2017 Unite the Right rally juiced donations to a new level.
From 2011-2016, contributions per fiscal year never exceeded $50 million. Since then, annual donations have never fallen below $97 million, as shown on Form 990 tax filings posted by ProPublica.
Companies making hefty donations to the center after the rally included Apple, which gave $1 million, and JP Morgan Chase, which contributed $500,000.
Jonathan Turley, George Washington University Law School professor, said the indictment could provide the basis for a civil action by the center’s far-right group targets.
According to the indictment, an informant who was paid $1 million by the center infiltrated the National Alliance and stole 25 boxes of documents in 2014. The boxes were returned after the informant copied the materials in coordination with a “high-level SPLC employee.”
“The Center does not have any special authority to commit such acts,” Mr. Turley said in a Wednesday post on his blog.
At the same time, he said the Justice Department has its work cut out for it, predicting that the center will raise constitutional challenges over free speech, associational rights, and selective prosecution.
“The government has a tough case, with the alleged fraud used to produce evidence submitted to state and federal prosecutors,” Mr. Turley said. “In addition, if this case extends into a new administration, a Democratic Justice Department could scuttle the case, as did the Biden Administration.”
Mr. Fair said the center no longer uses paid informants, but said they were needed to protect the center’s safety, referring to the 55-year-old group’s mission to dismantle the Ku Klux Klan and similar racist groups by bankrupting them through litigation.
“When we began working with informants, we were living in the shadow of the height of the civil rights movement, which had seen bombings at churches, state-sponsored violence against demonstrators, and the murders of activists that went unanswered by the justice system,” he said. “There is no question that what we learned from informants saved lives.”
Mr. Blanche said the Justice Department reopened the investigation into the SPLC after the Biden administration shut it down.
“I don’t have any insight into why [the decision] was made to not pursue the investigation, and we started it again,” said Mr. Blanche at Tuesday’s press conference. “And that brings us to where we are today.”
