The Department of Justice is reportedly investigating the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) over its “use of paid informants to infiltrate extremist groups.”
The Associated Press (AP) disclosed the explosive development on Tuesday, when it reported comments from the leftist group’s leadership indicating that “it’s the subject of a criminal investigation” by federal officials.
“Although we don’t know all the details, the focus appears to be on the SPLC’s prior use of paid confidential informants to gather credible intelligence on extremely violent groups,” SPLC CEO Bryan Fair said in a statement.
Hours later, the DOJ released an indictment charging the SPLC with multiple offenses, including wire fraud for secretly funneling donated funds to those groups. According to the DOJ, the funds totaled more than $3 million.
As described by the AP, Fair said that the SPLC “previously paid informants to infiltrate” groups the SPLC designated as extremist to “gather information on their activities” and pass it on to “local and federal law enforcement.” He further contended that this infiltration program was used to “monitor threats of violence,” and that details about its operations were “kept quiet to protect the safety of informants,” according to the outlet.
Fair seemingly indicated that the SPLC had been using informants since the aftermath of the civil rights movement, and referenced the violence of that era as justification for the use of informants. He claimed the group has “saved lives.”
But even as the SPLC allegedly shuttled millions to actual racists, it coordinated a campaign to paint numerous mainstream conservative organizations as violent and racist extremists.
That breathless smear campaign against conservative groups has gotten at least one person shot. As The Federalist’s Jordan Boyd previously reported, “On August 15, 2012, a man armed with a 9mm handgun, 50 rounds of ammunition, and 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches, arrived at the Family Research Council, a notably conservative group, headquarters in Washington with the intent to ‘kill as many as possible and smear the Chick-Fil-A sandwiches in victims’ faces, and kill the guard.’” While the attempted killer — who shot the group’s security guard — was subdued and nobody died, he confessed to law enforcement “that he was targeting anti-gay organizations as designated by the SPLC.”
“The shooter reportedly found the FRC on the SPLC’s online hate map which claims that the council’s ‘anti-LGBTQ’ ideology is the reason for its designation as a hate group and began forming his plan,” Boyd wrote.
The FRC is hardly the only conservative-leaning organization the SPLC has targeted with its anti-conservative “extremist” smear campaign.
Months before his assassination, allegedly at the hands of a “trans”-loving lunatic, the SPLC accused Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk’s group of flirting with so-called “white Christian supremacy.”
In her May 2025 SPLC article, author Rachael Fugardi claimed that “Turning Point USA’s primary strategy is sowing and exploiting fear that white Christian supremacy is under attack by nefarious actors, including immigrants, the LGBTQ+ community and civil rights activists.” She further contended that TPUSA is seeking to “sow fear and division to enforce social hierarchies rooted in supremacism,” which she said “is emblematic of the hard right’s broader political project to destroy our foundational democratic principles and institutions.”
The SPLC’s “Year in Hate and Extremism 2024” report described TPUSA as a “Case Study of the Hard Right in 2024,” according to the AP.
[READ: SPLC Lead Attorney Apparently Participated In Unlawful Capitol Anti-Israel Protest]
SPLC has also deployed its “designated hate group” smear against Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal organization whose work includes protecting women’s sports from trans-identifying men and defending pro-life centers against Democrat lawfare.
FBI Director Kash Patel severed the federal agency’s ties with the SPLC last year. The director noted that the far-left group “long ago abandoned civil rights work and turned into a partisan smear machine.”
This article has been updated since publication.
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He is a co-recipient of the 2025 Dao Prize for Excellence in Investigative Journalism. His work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics and RealClearHealth. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
