WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawyers for the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) have called for the dismissal of a Justice Department indictment, claiming it is part of a “top-down” retaliatory campaign against President Donald Trump’s perceived political adversaries. The nonprofit’s legal team argued Tuesday for the case to be thrown out.
The Alabama-based nonprofit was charged in April with fraud and money laundering, accused of deceiving donors by compensating informants within white supremacist and extremist groups to gather intelligence on their operations.
The SPLC’s legal counsel contends that law enforcement agencies have long been aware of the nonprofit’s practice of using paid informants to monitor hate groups. They also alleged that acting Attorney General Todd Blanche falsely claimed at a news conference and interviews that the SPLC had not shared intelligence gathered from informants with law enforcement. Blanche later backtracked in a television interview, acknowledging that the SPLC had “selectively” shared such information over the years.
The SPLC’s attorneys elaborated on these points Tuesday, describing the prosecution as the “culmination of a top-down, retributive campaign” driven by Trump to target his political enemies, including the SPLC.
Defense says indictment fits broader retaliation campaign
The motion was submitted amidst other politically sensitive prosecutions that have sparked concerns about the Justice Department being used to target Trump’s opponents. It seeks to compare the SPLC indictment to the human smuggling prosecution of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, which was dismissed on Friday due to similar claims of vindictive prosecution, with a judge describing the case as an “abuse of prosecuting power.”
The SPLC has defended its now-discontinued program of paying informants to infiltrate hate groups, stating it was designed to provide crucial insights into their activities to protect potential victims. Although a previous federal investigation into the practice ended without charges, the current motion suggests the Justice Department is aggressively pursuing the case with renewed urgency.
The department reportedly chose to move forward with the indictment without interviewing any current SPLC staff or seeking any documents from the organization before notifying defense lawyers about pending criminal charges, according to the defense motion. During a meeting sought by defense lawyers to prevent the indictment, Justice Department officials allegedly informed them that the decision had already been made to press charges.
According to the motion, “These procedural irregularities indicate that the charges against the SPLC were predetermined based on prosecutorial vindictiveness — driven by the White House and FBI leadership’s retribution campaign — rather than a result of a genuine examination of the evidence.” The indictment is described as “based on conclusory accusations without provable facts or a proper legal framework.”
The motion also refers to whistleblower accounts that accused top Justice Department officials of advancing the indictment despite internal doubts about the case’s validity and evidence strength.
“For weeks, we have been refuting these false allegations against the SPLC — an organization that has been championing the fight against white supremacy and injustice for 55 years to establish a multiracial democracy where all can thrive,” Bryan Fair, the interim president and CEO of SPLC, stated. “The government cannot prosecute the SPLC as retaliation for its protected speech — it violates fundamental constitutional rights.”
The administration has painted SPLC as partisan
Since its founding in 1971 as a civil rights organization, the SPLC has used legal action to combat white supremacist groups and monitor domestic extremist activities. However, its work has made it a frequent target among Republicans, who perceive it as overly leftist and partisan.
The center gained renewed attention last year following the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, after the SPLC included Turning Point USA, the group Kirk founded, in its report titled “The Year in Hate and Extremism 2024.”
In October, FBI Director Kash Patel announced the bureau would be ending its association with the SPLC, branding it a “partisan smear machine” and accusing it of defaming “mainstream Americans” with its “hate map” that tracks anti-government and hate groups in the U.S.
The defense motion asserts that “animus” from high-level administration officials influenced the indictment.
It references, among other remarks, a statement from Trump criticizing the SPLC as “a total scam run by the Democrats,” along with a media interview where Harmeet Dhillon, the Justice Department’s top civil rights official, described the indictment as “personal” to her, noting she had “many journalist friends … and groups that I’ve represented who have been targeted by the Southern Poverty Law Center.”
