In today’s legacy media newsroom, there are two sides to every story: the one they want the public to see, and the one they’re trying to hide. As often as not, the one they want the public to see is untrue, and the one they are trying to hide is true.
The news coverage of the mess the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has gotten itself into this week provides a perfect opportunity to compare and contrast the way something like this manifests itself.
To set the stage, you have to know the actual facts, which are:
- A grand jury in Montgomery, Al., indicted the SPLC with 11 counts of wire fraud, false statements to a federally insured bank, and conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering.
- A U.S. Attorney’s Office filed two forfeiture actions to recover alleged proceeds of the organization’s fraud scheme.
- The counts center on allegations from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) that between 2014 and 2023, the SPLC secretly funneled more than $3 million in donated funds to individuals who were associated with various violent extremist groups including the Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations, and National Socialist Party of America.
- The DOJ claims that the SPLC’s donors weren’t told of this, and that since the SPLC publicly said it was working to dismantle the same groups it was allegedly funding, they likely never would have donated in the first place.
- The DOJ and multiple news reports have indicated that front groups were allegedly created to launder the payments to those whose organizations the SPLC was publicly demonizing.
Now, in terms of the battle for the truth, the reality seems to be that when the SPLC paid certain operatives in these “hate groups,” the purpose was not to pay an informant to aid the SPLC in taking the group down, even though that’s not the SPLC’s job anyway. Rather, it was to pay the operative to help advance the cause of the targeted “hate group” through certain actions, and even under certain direction from the SPLC.
The net effect of the SPLC’s support, by design was to bolster the organizations the SPLC portrayed as public enemies, thus keeping the hate alive. Millions of dollars over many years may have been involved.
Why would the SPLC do such a thing? I don't know for sure, but according to reports, after the infamous Charlottesville "Unite the Right" rally in 2017, which received funding from the SPLC, the SPLC saw an increase in its own funding to the tune of over $80 million. This is a video the SPLC produced in 2024 that sends a completely different message now that you know it allegedly funded the group behind the event.
#OTD in 2017, the nation witnessed KKK members and white nationalists in the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia, protesting the removal of a monument dedicated to a man who fought to uphold a white supremacist system and lost.#TheMarchContinues pic.twitter.com/JVIXPrmI5S
— Southern Poverty Law Center (@splcenter) August 11, 2024
So, how did the leftist, legacy media report on this?
Reuters, the Washington Post, the Associated Press, and The Guardian all make it sound like the DOJ is going after the SPLC for the simple use of paid informants:
- US Southern Poverty Law Center charged with fraud over use of paid informants | Reuters
- DOJ charges Southern Poverty Law Center over paid informants - The Washington Post
- Southern Poverty Law Center indicted on federal fraud charges | Trump administration | The Guardian
- Southern Poverty Law Center indicted on federal fraud charges | AP News
CBS found a way to frame the story as the DOJ making charges over “investigations.” That’s like saying you’re being charged with a crime because you were arrested. The investigations were not the cause or the reason for the charges. The charges are over something the SPLC did, not what law enforcement did.
ABC decided to frame the story not as a grand jury indicting the SPLC, but rather as the SPLC self-reporting that it is facing an investigation. Umm, ABC News, not quite. Do better.
The Southern Poverty Law Center said it's facing an investigation by the Justice Department, apparently stemming from its past use of paid informants. https://t.co/zOivcmeeAY
— ABC News (@ABC) April 21, 2026
Nobody carries the left’s water like CNN. Not one claim CNN makes here is accurate.
The Southern Poverty Law Center was indicted over a discontinued program that used paid confidential informants to infiltrate white supremacist and other organizations, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced. https://t.co/IUCwOuhPtk pic.twitter.com/FaL6gNRnmi
— CNN (@CNN) April 21, 2026
USA Today did some work to come up with a non sequitur that would make my colleague Stephen Kruiser proud.
The Southern Poverty Law Center was indicted for paying sources to infiltrate hate groups, a tactic federal agencies have used for decades. https://t.co/flekWop4XX
— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) April 22, 2026
That’s right – a nonprofit was doing the same thing a federal law enforcement agency does. What’s the problem? Actually, USA Today also bent the truth in half when it said that all the SPLC was doing was paying those “informants” to infiltrate. That’s not close to accurate. They were allegedly paying embedded leaders to keep stirring the hate and, at times, to take direction and coordinate with each other.
On the whole issue of "informants," this wasn’t the sequel to Donnie Brasco, where Johnny Depp, playing a cop, infiltrates the mob. Nonprofits don't hire informants. They certainly don't pay key members of "hate groups" to keep the hate going. One of the allegations is that the SPLC allegedly paid an “Imperial Wizard” of the KKK in one case to continue being an “Imperial Wizard” of the KKK, for crying out loud.
If the DOJ can take down the SPLC for its actions here, that is a major victory for the entire right and for the truth. We've seen the impact the shutdown of USAID has had throughout the left and, to some extent, throughout the culture. We've seen the benefits of a secure border. With the exposure of the SPLC, a lot of leftist propaganda infrastructure is now at risk. People have no idea how integral the SPLC has been to creating and driving fake narratives.
Timing wise, this is excellent. It's still early enough in the Trump administration's second term that the DOJ under Trump will likely be able to see this one through to its inevitable conclusion. One we can only hope will involve the demise of a hate-mongering, propaganda-generating, money-wielding Southern Poverty Law Center.
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