This is big because this group of lawyers, if that is what you want to call them, has paid members of hate groups to raise Cain, as they say. They fueled the fire of hate groups to get donations and work with progressives to promote conservatives as those leading the violence, when it is their paid actor doing the dirty work. The SPLC paid a KKK member to incite, more money than most of us make after working decades.
Every lawyer involved needs to lose their license and or be jailed. Either would be fine. But they are lawyers, and they protect their own. All IMO.
“The Southern Poverty Law Center, which was recently indicted on federal charges for quietly paying more than $3 million to informants with several extremist groups, has been discreetly influencing corporate giving at more than 200 Fortune 1000 companies, according to a corporate watchdog.
While the SPLC’s legal problems are only just beginning, conservatives have been sounding the alarm about the group’s left-wing bias and undue influence for a long time. The SPLC was founded in 1971 and got its start investigating white supremacist groups like the Ku Klux Klan, but has since expanded its focus to conservative and Christian organizations, which it has included on its lists of hate groups and labeled as “extremists.”
These designations — which have impacted conservative groups including Turning Point USA and the Family Research Council — have had real-life consequences. An armed attacker who targeted the FRC in 2012 explicitly cited the SPLC’s website as his reason for targeting the conservative group.
The FBI announced last year that it would end its longstanding relationship with the law center because of its smearing of conservative groups. FBI Director Kash Patel accused the SPLC of inspiring violence against Americans with its “hate map.” The change came after the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk; a 2024 report from the SPLC called Kirk’s group, Turning Point USA, a “case study of the hard right.” (The SPLC’s tracking of extremism does not include any leftist organizations.)
But the group has also had a lesser-known influence on billions of dollars in corporate giving, thanks to its biased “hate map,” according to the 1792 Exchange, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving freedom and bringing ideological balance back to public corporations. An investigation by the 1792 Exchange found that Benevity, a major corporate charitable giving platform, has relied on the SPLC’s hate map to help steer donations toward left-wing organizations and away from conservative and faith-based organizations that the SPLC has flagged as “hateful.”
The SPLC did not respond to a request for comment regarding alleged bias in the methodology behind its “Hate Map.”