The Southern Poverty Law Center has discovered a problem with paid informants. It has financial motives, personal grudges, and reasons to tell their handlers what they want to hear. An organization that pays for intelligence ought to understand those hazards before the invoices arrive.
Now its lawyers are asking a federal court to scrutinize F-9, the organization’s longest-contracted informant, who later began cooperating with investigators examining the SPLC. Their October 28 motion alleges bias and selective disclosure and seeks preservation of his records and permission to subpoena them.
The government’s primary informant in this case was the Southern Poverty Law Center’s longest-contracted informant, F-9. His work in the program was almost certainly the most rewarding role F-9 ever had, both financially and professionally. Apparently, F-9 chose not to pay taxes on his income for 30 years. In addition, while contracting as an SPLC informant, F-9 started a meaningful personal relationship.
But between December 2021 and July 2023, everything changed. In that timeframe, F-9 learned his income from the SPLC would be significantly reduced, his personal relationship ended, and his relationship with the SPLC was terminated. In the midst of this, he was contacted by federal law enforcement about meeting with an IRS Criminal Investigation Division agent—at a time when he knew he faced serious criminal and financial exposure for his failure to pay taxes on decades of income.
The obvious question reaches backward: What did the SPLC believe when it was paying him? More specifically, what did it verify?
An accusation can damage a reputation long before anyone examines the supporting evidence. Anyone claiming authority to identify dangerous people should welcome questions about how that authority was earned, especially when money changed hands for the information.
The federal case began with an April indictment alleging wire fraud, false statements to a federally insured bank, and a money-laundering conspiracy. Prosecutors alleged that the SPLC concealed payments exceeding $3 million to people associated with extremist groups between 2014 and 2023 while misleading donors about how their contributions would be used.
From the Department of Justice:
“The SPLC is manufacturing racism to justify its existence,” said Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. “Using donor money to allegedly profit off Klansmen cannot go unchecked. This Department of Justice will hold the SPLC and every other fraudulent organization operating with the same deceptive playbook accountable. No entity is above the law.”
“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. "They lied to their donors, vowing to dismantle violent extremist groups, and actually turned around and paid the leaders of these very extremist groups - even utilizing the funds to have these groups facilitate the commission of state and federal crimes. That is illegal – and this is an ongoing investigation against all individuals involved.”
The SPLC denies wrongdoing and says its informant program gathered intelligence that protected people and saved lives. Its defense therefore rests partly on the value of information obtained through relationships now receiving uncomfortable scrutiny.
The new filing describes F-9’s reduced income, ended personal relationship, and termination as developments preceding his deeper cooperation with investigators. It alleges that he provided selected recording excerpts while retaining the full recordings, and that prosecutors granted him broad immunity.
Those allegations identify specific reasons to examine the evidence he has now. They also invite questions about the institution that employed him for years.
Did the SPLC require original recordings? Did supervisors compare his accounts with independent evidence? Could another employee challenge his conclusions without being dismissed as insufficiently committed to the mission? Were payments tied to useful, verified information, or merely continued access?
Those are questions, and the answers need records. A declaration of noble intentions won’t supply them.
The defense says F-9 withheld material and asks the court to ensure the underlying evidence survives. Preserve it, because complete recordings and original documents offer a better foundation for judgment than anyone’s carefully selected excerpts.
I want the same standard applied to the work he performed while the SPLC paid him. If the organization independently checked his information, it should explain what safeguards it used. If it discovered errors, it should explain how it corrected them and who received those corrections.
The chronology matters because a source can become resentful after a relationship collapses. His later conduct can’t automatically establish that his earlier work was false.
It does, however, make a documented account of the SPLC’s verification practices especially relevant.
An employer shouldn’t get to invoke years of valuable service when defending its program, then expect questions about those years to disappear when it attacks the former contractor’s reliability. Both claims require examination, and neither becomes stronger through moral posturing.
Donors should be able to ask what their contributions purchased and how the results were checked. People affected by an organization’s accusation have an even greater stake in getting those answers.
A sound review would trace individual claims back to their original evidence. It would distinguish what the source personally witnessed from what he inferred or heard secondhand, then record who checked each claim before the organization acted.
Good intentions can’t perform that work.
The SPLC’s lawyers understand why motives, complete records, and corroboration matter. Their client should show how carefully it applied those lessons when it signed the checks.