* Frivolous and bad.

** Fascist.

I will say, frivolously suing a nonprofit for fraud has become A Thing recently. See, e.g., James Huntsman's suit against the Mormon Church or Elon Musk's against OpenAI.

But rich people wasting money to punish nonprofits they no longer like is one thing;* the government doing it is another.**

"Send us money to help build a border wall" and then instead buying yourself 18 more rumpled polo shirts to wear simultaneously, that's donor fraud. "Send us money to help research and track extremists" and then spending that money on obtaining information about extremists groups is... not fraud.

I gotta tell you, it is soulless to have to track what John Solomon says.

But I gravely worry that key players are not tracking what John Solomon says, which is like not getting the free wiretap on the mob lawyer's phone.

Southern Poverty Law Center says it's being 'targeted' by Trump administration The head of the civil rights organization said that they believe DOJ is running a criminal investigation, possibly involving their use of confidential informants.

Southern Poverty Law Center says it's being 'targeted' by Trump DOJ

"Defendants knew that contacting the subject of a highly damaging allegation before publication is a basic requirement of responsible journalism. Their failure to do so was deliberate: they did not contact Ms. Kerkhoff because they did not want to hear evidence that would contradict their story."

"Ms. Kerkhoff and Mr. Dickert plan to move, potentially out of state, so they may escape the social isolation that Defendants’ false accusation has forced them to endure." storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

179. Ms. Kerkhoff read Defendants’ November 8 Article in disbelief. Like on January 6, she immediately snapped into crisis response mode. 180. Ms. Kerkhoff had already retained a personal data removal service provider to scan and remove private information from data brokers and “people search” sites in preparation for Trump pardoning the January 6 defendants. She now called immediate family members and pleaded with them to do the same. She even retained and paid-for the same personal data removal service provider for her entire immediate family. 181. Ms. Kerkhoff and Mr. Dickert drove to the grocery store and bought a trunk-load of frozen food. Then, fearful for their safety, they rarely left the house for two weeks. Every time they did, they were followed. They did not know by whom: investigators, reporters, or people who believed Defendants’ false claims and intended to harm them. 182. Ms. Kerkhoff received an enormous, unwanted amount of attention from reporters. Some found her name on Venmo and attempted to send her $1 so they could “connect,” enabling them to send her direct messages. Ms. Kerkhoff was forced to disguise her identity on Venmo and to lock down her profile from public searches. Others reached out to her through Signal. She deleted that app entirely. Ms. Kerkhoff once saw a mysterious man walk up to her front door. He turned out to be a reporter for the Daily Wire. On a Friday night, Blaze Media’s editor-in-chief Christopher Bedford visited her home in Alexandria, Virginia; Blaze Media later reported that he was “pulled over by local police after stopping to observe” it.

Here's what happened after a conservative website suggested that an officer who testified in Jan. 6 cases was the pipe bomber:

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

I was surprised that there was not a charge of capturing and eating dogs and cats. Apparently, JD Vance was not consulted in writing this piece.

That scheme will likely backfire. These guys are not just evil, they are also not very smart.

And the purpose of the case it plain as day: To attempt to bankrupt the organization and intimidate others.

The purported evil, providing benefits to informants, is -- of course -- something that law enforcement officers have done for ages.

More generally, "you took donor money for this ideological goal and did stuff we think is politically misaligned" isn't the law. Org might even be dumb and ineffective in its chosen strategy, but that's not a crime. Has to be a specific factual promise about what you will or won't do with the money.

Infiltrating hate groups with informants is something that goes way back to the civil rights era and before. It's never been something only the government can do, especially when the government is more likely to be showing up for the white power happy hour every third Thursday at Chili's.

Can definitely criticize the merits, or if the scale reached the point where you're effectively subsidizing them well in excess of the value of the information. But "I'll pay you if you tell me what your little Klan club is up to" isn't illegal and I doubt SPLC donors would be that shocked by it.

#1 in United States v. Southern Poverty Law Center, Inc. (M.D. Ala., 2:26-cr-00139) – CourtListener.com INDICTMENT as to Southern Poverty Law Center, Inc. (1) Count(s) 1-6, 7-10, 11. (Forfeiture Allegations) (MLF) (Entered: 04/21/2026)

In general, Trump DOJ's effort to weaponize DOJ founders on the incompetence of MAGAt lawyers (as Chad Mizelle was quoted as confessing). But this SPLC indictment? Shit. Evil genius.

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

of 14 INTRODUCTION The Southern Poverty Law Center's (SPL") stated mission included the dismantling of white supremacy and confronting hate across the country. However, unbeknownst to donors, some of their donated money was being used to fund the leaders and organizers of racist groups, including the Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Nation, and the National Alliance. The SPLC's paid informants ("field sources") engaged in the active promotion of racist groups at the same time that the SPLC was denouncing the same groups on its website. The SPL also had a field source who was a member of the online leadership chat group that planned the 2017 "Unite the Right" event in Charlottesville, Virginia. That field source made racist postings under the supervision of the SPLC and helped coordinate transportation to the event for several attendees. In order to covertly pay its field sources, the SPLC opened bank accounts connected to a series of fictitious entities. The covert nature of the accounts allowed the SPLC to disguise the true nature, source, ownership, and control of the fraudulently obtained donated money the SPLC paid the field sources. In order to keep the scheme going, the SPL made a series of false statements related to the operation of the accounts.

Priceless: gravamen of gov’s indictment is SPLC “aided” racist groups by funding undercover operatives who infiltrated the groups, & this constituted aid. IOW, when police use paid undercover informer to infiltrate KKK or other crime org, they’re actually *helping* the group. DOJ has zero shame.

WTF???!!!

what??

The official seal of the United States Supreme Court, featuring a circular design with the words “Supreme Court of the United States” surrounding a central emblem of a balanced scale of justice and a laurel wreath, symbolizing law, authority, and fairness.

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What exactly is the charge even? And why does it warrant the attention of the FBI director and the Acting AG and the mystery presser?

Blanche is good at willful ignorance.

Correct. Claiming that indicting a civil rights organization, and then asserting that the investigation of the indicted entity is ongoing is routine is wrong. Nothing routine about this.

The Justice Dept’s theory of the case— that the group that single-handedly disassembled the Ku Klux Klan defrauded its donors by concealing that it was using paid informant to do that work and more— has about as much merit as the now-dismissed charges against Jim Comey.

DOJ in the conference described it as "funneling money to white supremacist groups", so I guess that's their angle, paying these informants, who joined white supremacist groups, was really giving the white supremacist groups money that donors gave to fight those groups. Which is dumb.

Ah, this is "We Build the Wall" Steve Bannon payback. Because Bannon lied to donors and just pocketed money, they're claiming that paying informants to do the research they unambiguously tell donors they do is fraud on the donors because some might not know *how* they do the research.

Pretty dumb.

Did Kash Patel read his own lawsuit?

When asked why he was locked out of his computer — as The Atlantic reported and Patel *admitted* in his lawsuit — Patel denied it happened: "I was never locked out of my systems," he just claimed.

What his lawsuit says: buff.ly/JTRuZKf

To be fair, Blanche is typically coherence challenged.

SPLCIndictment042126

BREAKING: Storied civil rights group Southern Poverty Law Center indicted on 11 counts, including fraud conspiracy, bank fraud & money laundering. DOJ alleges SPLC fueled hate groups while raising money off threat. Ind: www.documentcloud.org/documents/28... Earlier: www.politico.com/news/2026/04...

Southern Poverty Law Center indicted on federal fraud charges related to past use of paid informants The Southern Poverty Law Center has been indicted on federal fraud charges related to its past use of paid informants to infiltrate extremist groups.

The apparent theory here--SPLC was defrauding donors by paying right-wing extremist org informants, and also took completely legal steps for obscuring the money trail for very obvious reasons on this totally legal thing to do--is ludicrous even by the notoriously malleable standard for wire fraud.