8 hate group leaders including KKK Imperial Wizard and neo-Nazi got millions from SPLC
The Southern Poverty Law Center is accused of funneling millions of dollars to at least eight leaders and members of hate groups - including a Ku Klux Klan Imperial Wizard and a fundraiser for a neo-Nazi group - to act as informants, which one nonprofit leader likened to paying an arsonist to help put out a fire.
The Alabama-based non-profit was charged by the Department of Justice with wire fraud, bank fraud, and money laundering conspiracy on Tuesday for allegedly hiding from donors the fact that it doled out more than $3 million over the course of nearly a decade to "field sources" tasked with infiltrating violent extremist groups, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel announced Wednesday.
The field sources - or "Fs" - were "secretly paid" by SPLC between 2014 and 2023, the indictment claims.
America First Legal president Gene Hamilton, a former DOJ official, told The Post Wednesday it's unprecedented for a tax-exempt nonprofit to use donor funding to pay informants in violent extremist groups