Charged with federal crimes for allegedly making false statements to banks and making wire transfers in the names of companies that didn’t exist, the Southern Poverty Law Center hired Hunter Biden’s lawyer (among many others) and signaled an Orange Man Bad defense: Mean Donald Trump is having us prosecuted as a partisan attack, because we’re politically left and he’s politically right.
Previewing the strategy with an opening salvo on April 28, the SPLC’s small army of lawyers filed a 27-page brief (and do remember that page count) demanding that the courts protect their client against the DOJ’s cruel public lies on scary Fox News. The SPLC posted the whole brief on its website, and you can read it here. It claims that Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has falsely claimed that the SPLC never told law enforcement about things learned from its informant program, when they actually did. Screenshot of the opening statement, after a long table of contents and table of authorities that took up five whole pages:
The SPLC’s lawyers demanded that federal officials be ordered to stop lying in media appearances about their client, and they asked the court to order the immediate release of grand jury testimony so all of the real evidence could be made public. The opening move was a publicity move: Get the testimony out before trial, and frame it as a lie, while telling observers that the government is lying about the indictment.
Magistrate Judge Kelly Pate ordered the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Alabama to reply to the SPLC’s motion by May 5. They did, and the response was a shrug: four pages, with headers, signatures, and proof of service, amounting to a single page of text. Here’s the entire heart of the DOJ’s argument:
You can almost hear the heavy sigh: That’s not what he said, and it doesn’t have anything to do with the charges, so it’s not worth discussing further. Go watch some TV if you need further clarification. On May 6, the day after the government filed its response, Pate denied the SPLC’s motion as moot: The government isn’t lying, and there’s no evidence that they intend to, so there’s no need to order them not to.
On May 7, the SPLC was arraigned and pled not guilty. On Friday, May 8, Pate ordered the SPLC’s lawyers to propose a schedule for pre-trial discovery, and the case proceeds toward trial.
As The Federalist has written, experts on banking laws describe the SPLC’s alleged behavior as clear violations of law, if the indictment describes them accurately. As we reported on April 28, the existing charges might be “the tip of the iceberg,” with more charges and defendants expected. Appearing to acknowledge that reality, SPLC lawyer Abbe Lowell has begun telling the media that he expects to see a superseding indictment in the case, expanding the list of charges.
The SPLC has due process rights, and the organization is entitled to a presumption of innocence. But the outcome will be determined in a courtroom, not in the Lowellesque staging of public drama. The SPLC’s lawyers are likely to continue to attack the prosecution in the public sphere, a maneuver that still won’t help in front of a judge and jury.
The Federalist has contacted the SPLC’s legal team with questions several times, but has never received a response.
